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GOUVERNEUR MORRIS 



BY 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



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BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1888 



'A/I 71^ 



Copyright, 1888, 
By THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

All rights reserved. 

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Tlie Riverside Press, Cambridge.' 
Electrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Houghton & COt 



INTRODUCTION. 



Two generations ago the average American 
biographer was certainly a marvel of turgid and 
aimless verbosity ; and the reputations of our 
early statesmen have in no way proved their 
vitality more clearly than by surviving their 
entombment in the pages of the authors who 
immediately succeeded them. No one of the 
founders of the Co;3,^iii;ul»ojg suffered more 
in this respect than^^^s<*^e'' jWho was perhaps 
the most brilliant, although by no means the 
greatest, of the whole number, — Gouverneur 
Morris. 

Jared Sparks, hitherto Morris's sole biogra- 
pher, wrote innumerable volumes on American 
history, many of which are still very valuable, 
and some of them almost indispensable, to the 
student. The value, however, comes wholly 
from the matter ; Mr. Sparks is not only a 
very voluminous writer, but he is also a quite 
abnormally dull one. His " Life of Gouv- 
erneur Morris" is typical of most of his work. 



VI INTRO D UCTION. 

He collected with great industry facts about 
Mr. Morris, and edited a large number of his 
letters and state papers, with numerous selec- 
tions, not always well chosen, from his Diary. 
Other merits the book has none, and it has 
one or two marked faults. He failed to un- 
derstand that a biographer's duties are not 
necessarily identical with those of a professional 
eulogist ; but for this he is hardly to blame, as 
all our writers then seemed' to think it neces- 
sary to shower indiscriminate praise on every 
dead American — whether author, soldier, 
politician, or what not — save only Benedict 
Arnold. He was funnily unconscious of his 
own prolix dullness ; and actually makes pro- 
fuse apologies for introducing extracts from 
Morris's bright, interesting writings into his 
own drearily platitudinous pages, hoping that 
" candor and justice" will make his readers par- 
don the " negligence " and " defects of style," 
which the extracts contain. He could not resist 
the temptation now and then to improve Mor- 
ris's English, and to soften down, or omit any- 
thing that he deemed either improper or beneath 
the stilted " dignity " of history. For example, 
Morris states that Marie Antoinette, when pur- 
sued by the Parisian fishwives, fled from her 
bed "in her shift and petticoat, with her stock- 
ings in her hand ; " such particularity struck 



I NT ROD U CTION. VU 

Mr. Sparks as shockingly coarse, and witk much 
refinement he replaced the whole phrase by 
''in her undress." An oath he would not per- 
mit to sully his pages on any terms ; thus when 
Morris wrote that Pennsylvania would find Sir 
Henry Clinton " a most damnable physician," 
Mr. Sparks simply left out the offending sen- 
tence altogether. This kind of thing he did 
again and again. 

Still he gives almost all of Morris's writings 
that are of political interest. It is, however, 
greatly to be desired that we should have a 
much more complete edition of his letters and 
Diary, on account of the extremely interesting 
descriptions they contain of the social life of the 
period, both in America and in Europe. As 
regards his public career, and his views and 
writings on public subjects, we already have 
ample material, much of which has appeared 
since Sparks's biography was written, and some 
of which is here presented for the first time. 

Morris's speeches in the Constitutional Con- 
vention have been preserved, in summarized 
form, by Madison in his " Debates: " of these, of 
course, Sparks was necessarily ignorant. Miss 
Annie Carey Morris has written two articles in 
" Scribner's Magazine " for January and Febru- 
ar}^ 1887, on her grandfather's life in Paris 
during the French Revolution, giving some new 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

and interesting details. A good article ap- 
peared in " Macmillan's Magazine" for No- 
vember, 1885, the writer evidentl}^ having been 
attracted to the subject by the way in which 
Taine made Morris's writings a basis for so 
much of his own great work on the Revolution. 
Decidedly the best piece upon Morris that lias 
yet been written, however, is the admirable 
sketch by Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge in the *' At- 
lantic Monthly " for April' 1886. 

My thanks are especially due the Hon. John 
Jay for furnishing me many valuable letters, 
hitherto unpublished, of both Jay and Morris ; 
and for giving me additional information about 
Morris's private life, and other matters. All 
the letters here quoted that are not given by 
Sparks are to be found either in the Jay MSS. 
or the Pickering MSS. Mr. Jay also furnished 
me with the account of the way in which Louis 
Philippe was finally persuaded to pay the debt 
he owed Morris. 



CONTENTS 



» 

PAQB 

Introduction v 

CHAPTER I. 
His Youth : Colonial New York 1 



CHAPTER II. 

The Outbreak of the Revolution : Morris in 
THE Provincial Congress 28 



CHAPTER III. 
Independence : Forming the State Constitution . 53 

CHAPTER IV. 
In the Continental Congress ........ 76 

CHAPTER V. 
Finances: The Treaty op Peace 99 

CHAPTER VL 
The Formation of the National Constitution . 125 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 
First Stay in France 169 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Life in Paris 197 

CHAPTER IX. 
Mission to England : Return to Paris . . . .227 

CHAPTER X. 
Minister to France 252 

CHAPTER XL 
Stay in Europe 300 

CHAPTER XII. 
Service in the United States Senate .... 320 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The Northern Disunion Movement among the 
Federalists 347 



GOUVEEl^EUE MOEEIS. 



CHAPTER I. 

HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 

When, on January 31, 1752, Goiiverneur 
Morris was born in the family manor-house at 
Morrisania, on the lands where his forefathers 
had dwelt for three generations, New York col- 
ony contained only some eighty thousand in- 
habitants, of whom twelve thousand were 
blacks. New York city was a thriving little 
trading town, whose people in summer suffered 
much from the mosquitoes that came back with 
the cows when they were driven home at night- 
fall for milking ; while from among the locusts 
and water-beeches that lined the pleasant, quiet 
streets, the tree frogs sang so shrilly through 
the long, hot evenings that a man in speaking 
could hardly make himself heard. 

Gouverneur Morris belonged by birth to 
that powerful landed aristocracy whose rule 
was known by New York alone among all the 



2 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

northern colonies. His great-grandfather, who 
had served in the Cromwellian armies, came to 
the seaport at the mouth of the Hudson, while 
it was still beneath the sway of Holland, and 
settled outside of Haerlem, the estate being 
invested with manorial privileges by the original 
grant of the governor. In the next two gener- 
ations the Morrises had played a prominent 
part in colonial affairs, both the father and 
grandfather of Gouverneur having been on the 
bench, and having also been members of the 
provincial legislature, where tliey took the 
popular side, and stood up stoutly for the rights 
of the Assembly in the wearisome and inter- 
minable conflicts waged by the latter against 
the prerogatives of the crown and the powers 
of the royal governors. The Morrises were 
restless, adventurous men, of erratic temper 
and strong intellect ; and, with far more than 
his share of the family talent and brilliancy, 
young Gouverneur also inherited a certain 
whimsical streak that ran through his char- 
acter. His mother was one of the Huguenot 
Gouverneurs, who had been settled in New 
York since the revocation of the Edict of 
Nantes ; and it was perhaps the P'rench blood 
in his veins that gave him the alert vivacity 
and keen sense of humor that distinguished 
him from most of the great Revolutionary 
statesmen who were his contemporaries. 



HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 

He was a bright, active boj^, fond of shooting 
and out -door sports, and was early put to 
school at the old Huguenot settlement of New 
Rochelle, where the church service was still 
sometimes held in French ; and he there learned 
to speak and write this language almost as 
well as he could English. Thence, after the 
usual preparatory instruction, he went to King's 
College — now, with altered name and spirit, 
Columbia — in New York. 

The years of his childhood were stirring 
ones for the colonies ; for England was then 
waging the greatest and most successful of her 
colonial contests with France and Spain for the 
possession of eastern North America. Such 
contests, with their usual savage accompani- 
ments in the way of Indian warfare, always 
fell with especial weight on New York, whose 
border lands were not only claimed, but even 
held by the French, and within whose bounda- 
ries lay the great confederacy of the Six Nations, 
the most crafty, warlike, and formidable of all 
the native races, infinitely more to be dreaded 
than the Algonquin tribes with whom the 
other colonies had to deal. Nor was this war 
any exception to the rule ; for battle after bat- 
tle was fought on our soil, from the day when, 
unassisted, the purely colonial troops of New 
York and New England at Lake George de- 



4 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

stroyed Baron Dieskau's mixed host, of Frencli 
regulars, Canadian militia, and Indian allies, 
to that still more bloody day when, on the 
shores of Lake Champlain, Abercrombie's great 
army of British and Americans recoiled before 
the fiery genius of Montcalm. 

When once the war was ended by the com- 
plete and final overthrow of the French power, 
and the definite establishment of English 
supremacy along the whole Atlantic seaboard, 
the bickering which was always going on be- 
tween Great Britain and her American sub- 
jects, and which was but partially suppressed 
even when they were forced to join in common 
efforts to destroy a common foe, broke out far 
more fiercely than ever. While the colonists 
were still reaping the aftermath of the contest 
in the shape of desolating border warfare 
against those Indian tribes who had joined in 
the famous conspiracy of Pontiac, the Royal 
Parliament passed the Stamp Act, and thereby 
began the struggle that ended in the Revolu- 
tion. 

England's treatment of her American sub- 
jects was thoroughly selfish ; but that her con- 
duct towards them was a wonder of tyranny, 
will not now be seriously asserted; on the 
contrary, she stood decidedly above the general 
European standard in such matters, and cer- 



HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 5 

tainly treated her colonies far better than 
France and Spain did theirs ; and she herself 
had undoubted grounds for complaint in, for 
example, the readiness of the Americans to 
claim military help in time of danger, together 
with their frank reluctance to pay for it. It 
was impossible that she should be so far in ad- 
vance of the age as to treat her colonists as 
equals ; they themselves were sometimes quite 
as intolerant in their behavior towards men of 
a different race, creed, or color. The New Eng- 
land Puritans lacked only the power, but not 
the will, to behave almost as badly towards the 
Pennsylvania Quakers as did the Episcopalian 
English towards themselves. Yet granting all 
this, the fact remains, that in the Revolution- 
ary War the Americans stood towards the Brit- 
ish as the Protestant peoples stood towards 
the Catholic powers in the sixteenth century, 
as the Parliamentarians stood towards the 
Stewarts in the seventeenth, or as the up- 
holders of the American Union stood towards 
the confederate slave-holders in the nineteenth ; 
that is, they warred victoriously for the right 
in a struggle whose outcome vitally affected 
the welfare of the whole human race. They 
settled, once for all, that thereafter the people 
of English stock should spread at will over 
the world's waste spaces, keeping all their old 



6 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

liberties and winning new ones ; and they took 
the first and longest step in establishing the 
great principle that thenceforth those Europe- 
ans, who by their strength and daring founded 
new states abroad, should be deemed to have 
done so for their own profit as freemen, and not 
for the benefit of their more timid, lazy, or 
contented brethren who stayed behind. 

The rulers of Great Britain, and to a large 
extent its people, looked upon the American 
colonies as existing primarily for the good of 
the mother country : they put the harshest re- 
strictions on American trade in the interests 
of British merchants ; they discouraged the 
spread of the Americans westward ; and they 
claimed the right to decide for both parties the 
proportions in which they should pay their 
shares of the common burdens. The English 
and Americans were not the subjects of a com- 
mon sovereign ; for the English were them- 
selves the sovereigns, the Americans were the 
subjects. Whether their yoke bore heavily or 
bore lightly, whether it galled or not, mattered 
little ; it was enough that it was a yoke to war- 
rant a proud, free people in throwing it off. 
We could not thankfully take as a boon part 
only of what we felt to be our lawful due. 
" We do not claim liberty as a privilege, but 
challenge it as a right," said the men of New 



Ills YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 7 

York, througli their legislature, in 1764 ; and 
all Americans felt with them. 

Yet, for all this, the feeling of loyalty was 
strong and hard to overcome throughout the 
provinces, and especially in New York. The 
Assembly wrangled with the royal governor; 
the merchants and shipmasters combined to 
evade the intolerable harshness of the laws of 
trade that tried to make them customers of 
England only ; the householders bitterly re- 
sented the attempts to quarter troops upon 
them ; while the soldiers of the garrison were 
from time to time involved in brawls with the 
lower ranks of the people, especially the sail- 
ors, as the seafaring population was large, and 
much given to forcibly releasing men taken 
by the press-gang for the British war- ships; 
but in spite of everything there was a genu- 
ine sentiment of affection and respect for the 
British crown and kingdom. It is perfectly 
possible that if British statesmen had shown 
less crass and brutal stupidity, if they had 
shown even the wise negligence of Walpole, 
this feeling of loyalty would have been strong 
enough to keep England and America united 
until they had learned how to accommodate 
themselves to the rapidly changing conditions ; 
but the chance was lost when once a prince 
like George the Third came to the throne. It 



8 ' GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

has been the fashion to represent this king as 
a well meaning, though dull person, whose 
good morals and excellent intentions partially- 
atoned for his mistakes of judgment; but such 
a view is curiously false. His private life, it is 
true, showed the very admirable but common- 
place virtues, as well as the appalling intellec- 
tual littleness, barrenness, and stagnation, of 
the average British green-grocer ; but in his 
public career, instead of rising to the level of 
harmless and unimportant mediocrity usually 
reached by the sovereigns of the House of 
Hanover, he fairly rivaled the Stuarts in his 
perfidy, wrongheadedness, political debauchery, 
and attempts to destroy free government, and 
to replace it by a system of personal despotism. 
It needed all the successive blunders both of 
himself and of his Tory ministers to reduce the 
loyal party in New York to a minority, by 
driving the moderate men into the patriotic 
or American camp ; and even then the loyalist 
minority remained large enough to be a for- 
midable power, and to plunge the embryonic 
state into a ferocious civil war, carried on, as in 
the Carolinas and Georgia, with even more bit- 
terness than the contest against the British. 

The nature of this loyalist party and the 
strength of the conflicting elements can only be 
understood after a glance at the many nation- 



HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK, 9 

alities that in New York were being blended 
into one. The descendants of the old Dutch 
inhabitants were still more numerous than those 
of any other one race, while the French Hu- 
guenots, who, being of the same Calvinistic faith, 
were closely mixed with them, and had been in 
the land nearly as long, were also plentiful ; 
the Scotch and Scotch- or Anglo-Irish, mostly 
Presbyterians, came next in point of numbers ; 
the English, both of Old and New England, 
next ; there were large bodies of Germans ; 
and there were also settlements of Gaelic 
Highlanders, and some Welsh, Scandina- 
Yians, etc. Just prior to the Revolution there 
were in New York city two Episcopalian 
churches, three Dutch Reformed, three Pres- 
byterian (Scotch and Irish), one French, two 
German (one Lutheran and one Calvinistic, al- 
lied to the Dutch Reformed) ; as well as places 
of worship for the then insignificant religious 
bodies of the Methodists, Baptists (largely 
Welsh), Moravians (German), Quakers and 
Jews. There was no Roman Catholic church 
until after the Revolution ; in fact before that 
date there were hardly any Roman Catholics 
in the colonies, except in Maryland and Penn- 
sylvania, and in New York they did not ac- 
quire any strength until after the War of 1812. 
This mixture of races is very clearly shown 



10 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

by the ancestry of the lialf-dozen great men 
brought forth by New York during tbe Revo- 
lution. Of these, one, Alexander Hamilton, 
stands in the very first class of American states- 
men ; two more, John Jay and Gouverneur 
Morris, come close behind him ; the others, 
Philip Schuyler, Robert Livingston, and George 
Clinton, were of lesser, but still of more than 
merely local, note. They were all born and 
bred on this side of the Atlantic. Hamilton's 
father was of Scotch, and his mother of French 
Huguenot, descent ; Morris came on one side 
of English, and on the other of French Hu- 
guenot, stock ; Jay, of French Huguenot blood, 
had a mother who was Dutch ; Schuyler was 
purely Dutch ; Livingston was Scotch on his 
father's, and Dutch on his mother's, side ; the 
Clintons were of Anglo-Irish origin, but mar- 
ried into the old Dutch families. In the same 
Avay, it was Herkomer, of German parentage, 
who led the New York levies, and fell at their 
head in the bloody fight against the Tories and 
Indians at Oriskany ; it was the Irishman 
Montgomery who died leading the New York 
troops against Quebec ; while yet another of 
the few generals allotted to New York by the 
Continental Congress was MacDougall, of 
Gaelic Scotch descent. The colony was alread}' 
developing an ethnic type of its own, quite 



niS YOUTH: COLONIAL. NEW YORK. 11 

distinct from that of England. No American 
state of the present day, not even Wisconsin 
or Minnesota, shows so many and important 
"foreign," or non-English elements, as New 
York, and for that matter Pennsylvania and 
Delaware, did a century or so ago. In fact, in 
New York the English element in the blood 
has grown greatly during the past century, 
owing to the enormous New England immi- 
gration that took place during its first half ; 
and the only important addition to the race 
conglomerate has been made by the Celtic Irish. 
The New England element in New York in 
1775 was small and unimportant ; on Long 
Island, where it was largest, it was mainly 
tory or neutral ; in the city itself, however, it 
was aggressively patriotic. 

Recent English writers, and some of our own 
as well, have foretold woe to our nation, be- 
cause the blood of the Cavalier and the Round- 
head is being diluted with that of "German 
boors and Irish cotters." The alarm is need- 
less. As a matter of fact the majority of the 
people of the middle colonies at the time of 
the Revolution ivere the descendants of Dutch 
and German boors and Scotch and Irish cot- 
ters ; and in a less degree the same was true 
of Georsria and the Carolinas. Even in New 
England, where the English stock was purest, 



12 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

there was plenty of other admixture, and two 
of her most distinguished Revolutionary fami- 
lies bore, one the Huguenot name of Bowdoin, 
and the other the Irish name of Sullivan. 
Indeed, from the very outset, from the days of 
Cromwell, there has been a large Irish admix- 
ture in New England. When our people 
began their existence as a nation, they already 
differed in blood from their ancestral relatives 
across the Atlantic much as the latter did 
from their forebears beyond the German Ocean ; 
and on the whole, the immigration since has not 
materially changed the race strains in our na- 
tionality ; a century back we were even less 
homogeneous than we are now. It is no doubt 
true that we are in the main an offshoot of the 
English stem ; and cousins to our kinsfolk of 
Britain we perhaps may be ; but brothers we 
certainly are not. 

But the process of assimilating, or as we 
should now saj^ of Americanizing, all foreign 
and non-English elements was going on almost 
as rapidly a hundred years ago as it is at pres- 
ent. A young Dutchman or Hugnenot felt it 
necessary, then, to learn English, precisely as 
a young Scandinavian or German does now ; 
and the churches of the former at the end of 
the last century were obliged to adopt English 
as the language for their ritual exactly as the 



HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 13 

churches of the latter do at the end of this. 
The most stirring, energetic, and progressive 
life of the colony was English ; and all the 
young fellows of push and ambition gradually 
adopted this as their native language, and then 
refused to belong to congregations where the 
service was carried on in a less familiar speech. 
Accordingly the Dutch Reformed churches 
dwindled steadily, while the Episcopalian and 
Presbyterian swelled in the same ratio, until 
in 1764 the former gained a new and lasting 
lease of life by reluctantly adopting the pre- 
vailing tongue ; though Dutch was also occa- 
sionally used until forty years later. 

In fact, during the century that elapsed be- 
tween the final British conquest of the colony 
and the Revolution, the New Yorkers — Dutch, 
French, German, Irish, and English — had 
become in the main welded into one people ; 
they felt alike towards outsiders, having chronic 
quarrels with the New England States as well 
as with Great Britain, and showing, indeed, 
but little more jealous hostility towards the 
latter than they did towards Connecticut and 
New Hampshire. 

The religious differences no longer corre- 
sponded to the differences of language. Half 
of the adherents of the Episcopalian Church 
were of Dutch or Huguenot blood ; the leading 



14 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

ministers of the Dutch Church were of Scotch 
parentage ; and the Presbyterians included 
some of every race. The colonists Avere all 
growing to call themselves Englishmen ; when 
Mayor Cruger, and a board of aldermen with 
names equally Dutch, signed the non-importation 
agreement, they prefaced it by stating that they 
claimed "their rights as Englishmen." But 
though there were no rivalries of race, there 
were many and bitter of class and religion, the 
different Protestant sects hating one another 
with a virulence much surpassing that with 
which they now regard even Catholics. 

The colony was in government an aristocra- 
tic republic, its constitution modeled on that of 
England and similar to it; the power lay in 
the hands of certain old and wealthy families, 
Dutch and English, and there was a limited 
freehold suffrage. The great landed families, 
the Livingstons, Van Rennselaers, Schuylers, 
Van Cortlandts, Phillipses, Morrises, with their 
huge manorial estates, their riches, their abso- 
lute social preeminence and their unquestioned 
political headship, formed a proud, polished, 
and powerful aristocracy, deep rooted in the 
soil ; for over a century their sway was un- 
broken, save by contests between themselves or 
with the royal governor, and they furnished 
the colony with military, political, and social 



niS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 15 

leaders for generation after generation. They 
owned numerous black slaves, and lived in state 
and comfort on their broad acres, tenant-farmed, 
in the great, roomy manor-houses, with wain- 
scoted walls and huge fireplaces, and round 
about the quaint old gardens, prim and formal 
with their box hedges and precise flower beds. 
They answered closely to the whig lords of 
England, and indeed were often connected with 
the ruling orders abroad by blood or marriage ; 
as an example, Staats Long Morris, Gouver- 
neur's elder brother, who remained a royalist, 
and rose to be a major-general in the British 
army, married the Duchess of Gordon. Some 
of the manors were so large that they sent 
representatives to the Albany legislature, to 
sit alongside of those from the towns and 
counties. 

Next in importance to the great manorial 
lords came the rich merchants of New York ; 
many families, like the Livingstons, the most 
prominent of all, had representatives in both 
classes. The merchants were somewhat of the 
type of Frobisher, Hawkins, Klaesoon, and other 
old English and Dutch sea- worthies, who were 
equally keen as fighters and traders. They 
were shrewd, daring, and prosperous ; they were 
often their own ship -masters, and during the 
incessant wars against the French and Spaniards 



16 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

went into privateering ventures with even more 
zest and spirit than into peaceful trading. 
Next came the smaller landed proprietors, who 
also possessed considerable local influence ; such 
was the family of the. Clintons. The law, too, 
was beginning to take high rank as an honor- 
able and influential profession. 

Most of the gentry were Episcopalians, theirs 
being practically the state church, and very 
influential and wealthy ; some belonged to the 
Calvinistic bodies, — notably the Livingstons, 
who were in large part Presbyterians, while cer- 
tain of their number were prominent members 
of the Dutch congregations. It was from among 
the gentry that the little group of New York 
revolutionary leaders came ; men of singular 
purity, courage, and ability, who, if they could 
not quite rank with the brilliant Virginians of 
that date, nevertheless stood close behind, 
alongside of the Massachusetts men and ahead 
of those from any other colony ; that, too, it 
must be kept in mind, at a time when New 
York was inferior in wealth and population to 
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, or Virginia, and 
little, if at all, in" advance of Maryland or Con- 
necticut. The great families also furnished the 
leaders of the loyalists during the war ; such 
were the De Lanceys, whose influence around 
the mouth of the Hudson was second to that of 



HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 17 

none others ; and the Johnsons, who, in man- 
sions that were also castles, held half-feudal, 
half-barbaric sway over the valley of the upper 
Mohawk, where they were absolute rulers, ready 
and willing to wage war on their own account, 
relying on their numerous kinsmen, their armed 
negro slaves, their trained bands of Gaelic re- 
tainers, and their hosts of savage allies, drawn 
from among the dreaded Iroquois. 

The bulk of the people were small farmers in 
the country, tradesmen and mechanics in the 
towns. They were for the most part members 
of some of the Calvinistic churches, the great 
majority of the whole population belonging to 
the Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed congre- 
gations. The farmers were thrifty, set in their 
ways, and obstinate ; the townsmen thrifty also, 
but restless and turbulent. Both farmers and 
townsmen were thoroughly independent and 
self-respecting, and were gradually getting more 
and more political power. They had always 
stood tenaciously by their rights, from the days 
of the early Stuart governors, who had com- 
plained loudly of the " Dutch Republicans." 
But they were narrow, jealous of each other, as 
well as of outsiders, and slow to act together. 

The political struggles were very bitter. 
The great families, under whose banners they 
were carried on, though all intermarried, were 



18 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

divided by keen rivalries into opposing camps. 
Yet they joined in dreading too great an ex- 
tension of democracy ; and in return were sus- 
pected by the masses, who grumblingly fol- 
lowed their lead, of hostility to the popular 
cause. The Episcopalians, though greatly in 
the minority, possessed most power, and ha- 
rassed in every way they dared the dissent- 
ing sects, especially the Presbyterians — for 
the Dutch Reformed and Huguenot churches 
had certain rights guaranteed them by treaty. 
The Episcopalian clergy were royalists to a 
man, and it was in their congregations that the 
main strength of the Tories lay, although these 
also contained many who became the stanchest 
of patriots. King's College was controlled by 
trustees of this faith. They were busy trying 
to turn it into a diminutive imitation of Ox- 
ford, and did their best to make it, in its own 
small way, almost as much a perverse miracle 
of backward and invariable wrong-headedness 
as was its great model. Its president, when the 
Revolution broke out, was a real old wine-bib- 
bing Tory parson, devoted to every worn-out 
theory that inculcated humble obedience to 
church and crown ; and lie was most summarily 
expelled by the mob. 

Some important political consequences arose 
from the fact that the mass of the people be- 
lono^ed to some one or other of the branches of 



HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 19 

the Calvinistic faith — of all faiths the most re- 
publican in its tendencies. They were strongly 
inclined to put their republican principles into 
practice as well in state as in church; they 
tended towards hostility to the crown, and were 
strenuous in their opposition to the extension of 
the Episcopal power, always threatened by 
some English statesmen ; their cry was against 
" the King and the Bishops." It is worth not- 
ing that the Episcopalian churches were shut 
up ^vhen the Revolution broke out, and were 
reopened when the British troops occupied the 
city. The Calvinistic churches, on the con- 
trary, which sided with the revolutionists, were 
shut when the British came into New York, 
were plundered by the troops, and were not re- 
opened until after the evacuation. 

Thus three parties developed, although the 
third, destined to overwhelm the others, had 
not yet come to the front. The first consisted 
of the royalists, or monarchists, the men who 
believed that power came from above, from the 
king and the bishops, and who were aristo- 
cratic in their sympathies; who were Ameri- 
cans only secondarily, and who stood by their 
order against their countr}^ This party con- 
tained many of the great manorial families and 
also of the merchants ; and in certain places, as 
in Staten Island, the east end of Long Island, 



20 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

the upper valley of the Mohawk, and part of 
Westchester County, the influence of the upper 
classes combined with the jealousy and igno- 
rance of large sections of the lower, to give it a 
clear majority of the whole population. The 
second party was headed by the great families 
of Whig or liberal sympathies, who, when the 
split came, stood by their country, although 
only very moderate republicans ; and it held 
also in its ranks the mass of moderate men, who 
wished freedom, were resolute in defense of 
their rights, and had republican leanings, but 
who also appreciated the good in the system 
under which they were living. Finally came 
the extremists, the men of strong republican 
tendencies, whose delight it was to toast Pym, 
Hampden, and the regicides. These were led by 
the agitators in the towns, and were energetic 
and active, but were unable to effect anything 
until the blunders of the British ministers threw 
the moderate men over to their side. They fur- 
nished none of the greater revolutionary lead- 
ers in New York, though the Clintons came 
near the line that divided them from the second 
party. 

The last political contest carried on under 
the crown occurred in 1768, the year in which 
Morris graduated from college, when the last 
colonial legislature was elected. It reminds 



HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 21 

US of our own days when we read of the fears 
entertained of the solid German vote, and of 
the hostility to the Irish, who were hated and 
sneered at as '^ beggars " by the English party 
and the rich Episcopalians. The Irish of those 
days, however, were Presbyterians, and in blood 
more English than Gaelic. St. Patrick's Day 
was celebrated then as now, by public proces- 
sions, as well as otherwise ; but when, for in- 
stance, on March 17, 1766, the Irish residents 
of New York celebrated the day by a dinner, 
they gave certain toasts that would sound 
strangely in the ears of Milesian patriots of the 
present time, for they included *' The Protes- 
tant Interest," and " King William, of glorious, 
pious, and immortal memory." 

The royalist or conservative side in this con- 
test in 1768 was led hy the De Lanceys, their 
main support being drawn from among the 
Episcopalians, and most of the larger mer- 
chants helping them. The Whigs, including 
those with republican leanings, followed the 
Livingstons, and were drawn mainly from the 
Presbyterian and other Calvinistic congrega- 
tions. The moderate men on this occasion 
went with the De Lanceys, and gave them the 
victory. In consequence the colonial legislature 
was conservative and loyal in tone, and anti- 
republican, although not ultra-tory, as a whole ; 



22 GOVVERNEUR MORRIS. 

and thus when the revolutionary outbreak began 
it went much slower than was satisfactory to the 
patriot party, and its actions were finally set 
aside by the people. 

When Morris graduated from college, as 
mentioned above, he was not yet seventeen 
years old. His college career was hke that of 
any other bright, quick boy, without over much 
industry or a passion for learning. For mathe- 
matics he possessed a genuine taste ; he was par- 
ticularly fond of Shakespeare ; and even thus 
early he showed great skill in discussion and 
much power of argument. He made the ora- 
tion, or graduating address, of his class, choosing 
for the subject "Wit and Beauty; " it was by 
no means a noteworthy effort, and was couched 
in the dreadful Johnsonian English of the 
period. A little later, when he took his mas- 
ter's degree, he again delivered an oration, — 
this time on ''Love." In point of style this 
second speech was as bad as the first, disfigured 
by cumbrous Latinisms and a hopeless use of 
the superlative ; but there were one or two 
good ideas in it. 

As soon as he graduated, he set to work to 
study law, deciding on this profession at once 
as being best suited for an active, hopeful, am- 
bitious young man of his social standing and 
small fortune, who was perfectly self-confident 



HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 23 

and conscious of his own powers. He soon 
became interested in his studies, and followed 
them with great patience, working 'hard and 
mastering both principles and details with ease. 
He was licensed to practice as an attorney in 
1771, just three years after another young man, 
destined to stand as his equal in the list of New 
York's four or five noted statesmen, John Jay, 
had likewise been admitted to the bar ; and 
among the very few cases in which Morris was 
engaged of which the record has been kept is 
one concerning a contested election, in which 
he was pitted against Jay, and bore himself 
well. 

Before this, and while not yet of age, he had 
already begun to play a part in public affairs. 
The colony had been run in debt during the 
French and Indian wars, and a bill was brought 
forward in the New York Assembly to provide 
for this by raising money through the issue of 
interest-bearing bills of credit. The people, in- 
dividually, were largely in debt, and hailed the 
proposal with much satisfaction, on the theory 
that it would " make money more plenty ; " 
our revolutionary forefathers being unfortu- 
nately not much wiser or more honest in their 
ways of looking at the public finances than we 
ourselves, in spite of our state repudiators, na- 
tional greenbackers, and dishonest silver men. 



24 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

Morris attacked the bill very forcibly, and 
with good effect, opposing any issue of paper 
money, Which could bring no absolute relief, 
but merely a worse catastrophe of bankruptcy 
in the end ; he pointed out that it was nothing 
but a mischievous pretense for putting off the 
date of a payment that would have to be met 
anyhow, and that ought rather to be met at once 
with honest money gathered from the resources 
of the province. He showed the bad effects 
such a system of artificial credit would have on 
private individuals, the farmers and tradesmen, 
by encouraging them to speculate and go deeper 
into debt; and he criticised unsparingly the 
attitude of the majority of his fellow-citizens 
in wishing such a measure of relief, not only 
for their short-sighted folly, but also for their 
criminal and selfish dishonesty in trying to 
procure a temporary benefit for themselves at 
the lasting expense of the community ; finally 
he strongly advised them to bear with patience 
small evils in the present rather than to remedy 
them by inflicting infinitely greater ones on 
themselves and their descendants in the future. 

At the law he did very well, having the 
advantages of his family name, and of his own 
fine personal appearance. He was utterly 
devoid of embarrassment, and his perfect self- 
assurance and freedom from any timidity or 



77/.^ YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 25 

sense of inferiority left his manner without the 
least tinge of awkwardness, and gave clear 
ground for his talents and ambition to make 
their mark. 

However, hardworking and devoted to his 
profession though he was, he had the true 
family restlessness and craving for excitement, 
and soon after he was admitted to the bar, he 
began to long for foreign travel, as was natural 
enough in a young provincial gentleman of his 
breeding and education. In a letter to an 
old friend (William Smith, a man of learning, 
the historian of the colony, and afterwards its 
chief justice), in whose office he had studied 
law, he asks advice in the matter, and gives 
as his reasons for wishing to make the trip 
the desire *' to form my manners and address 
by the example of the truly polite, to rub off 
in the gay circle a few of the many barbarisms 
which characterize a provincial education, and 
to curb the vain self-sufiiciency which arises 
from comparing ourselves with companions who 
are inferior to us." He then anticipates the 
objections that may be made on the score of 
the temptations to which he will be exposed 
by saying : ^' If it be allowed that I have a 
taste for pleasure, it may naturally follow that 
I shall avoid those low pleasures which abound 
on this as well as on the other side of the At- 



26 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

lantic. As for these poignant joys which are 
the lot of the affluent, like Tantalus I may grasp 
at them, but they will certainly be out of my 
reach." In this last sentence he touches on his 
narrow means ; and it was on this point that 
his old preceptor harped in making his reply, 
cunningly instilling into his mind the danger 
of neglecting his business, and bringing up the 
appalling example of an " Uncle Robin," who, 
having made three pleasure trips to England, 
" began to figure with thirty thousand pounds, 
and did not leave five thousand ; " going on 
" What ! ' Virtus post nummos ? Curse on in- 
glorious wealth ? ' Spare your indignation. I, 
too, detest the ignorant miser ; but both virtue 
and ambition abhor poverty, or they are mad. 
Rather imitate your grandfather [who had 
stayed in America and prospered] than your 
uncle." 

The advice may have had its effect ; at any 
rate Morris stayed at home, and, with an occa- 
sional trip to Philadelphia, got all he could out 
of the society of New York, which, little pro- 
vincial seaport though it was, was yet a gay 
place, gayer then than any other American city 
save Charleston, the society consisting of the 
higher crown officials, the rich merchants, and 
the great landed proprietors. Into this society 
Morris, a handsome, high-bred young fellow, 



HIS YOUTH: COLONIAL NEW YORK. 27 

of easy manners and far from puritanical 
morals, plunged with a will, his caustic wit 
and rather brusque self-assertion making him 
both admired and feared. He enjoyed it all 
to the fall, and in his bright, chatty letters to 
his friends pictures himself as working hard, 
but gay enough also : " up all night — balls, 
concerts, assemblies — all of us mad in the 
pursuit of pleasure." 

But the Revolution was at hand ; and both 
pleasure and office-work had to give way to 
something more important. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION: MOR- 
RIS IN THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS. 

During the years immediately preceding 
the outbreak of the Revolution, almost all 
people were utterly in the dark as to what 
their future conduct should be. No respon- 
sible leader thought seriously of separation 
from the mother country, and the bulk of the 
population were still farther from supposing 
such an event to be possible. Indeed it must 
be remembered that all through the Revolu- 
tionary War not only was there a minority 
actively favorable to the royal cause, but there 
was also a minority — so large that, added to 
the preceding, it has been doubted whether it 
was not a majority — that was but lukewarm in 
its devotion to the American side, and was kept 
even moderately patriotic almost as much by 
the excesses of the British troops and blunders 
of the British generals and ministers, as by the 
valor of our own soldiers, or the skill of our 
own statesmen. We can now see clearly that 



TEE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 29 

the right of the matter was with the patriotic 
party ; and it was a great thing for the whole 
English-speaking race that that section of it 
which was destined to be the most numerous 
and powerful should not be cramped and fet- 
tered by the peculiarly galling shackles of 
provincial dependency ; but all this w^as not 
by any means so clear then as now, and some 
of our best citizens thought themselves in honor 
bound to take the opposite side, — though of ne- 
cessity those among our most high-minded men, 
who were also far-sighted enough to see the true 
nature of the struggle, went with the patriots. 

That the loyalists of 1776 were wrong is 
beyond question ; but it is equally beyond 
question that they had greater grounds for 
believing themselves right than had the men 
who tried to break up the Union three quarters 
of a century later. That these latter had the 
most hearty faith in the justice of their cause 
need not be doubted ; and he is but a poor 
American whose veins do not thrill with pride 
as he reads of the deeds of desperate prowess 
done by the confederate armies ; but it is 
most unfair to brand the " tory " of 1776 with 
a shame no longer felt to pertain to the " rebel" 
of 1860. Still, there is no doubt, not only that 
the patriots were right, but also that they were 
as a whole superior to the tories; they were 



30 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

the men witli a high ideal of freedom, too fond 
of liberty, and too self-respecting, to submit to 
foreign rule ; they included the mass of hard- 
working, orderly, and yet high-spirited yeomen 
and freeholders. The tories inckided those of 
the gentry who were devoted to aristocratic 
principles ; the large class of timid and pros- 
perous people (like the Pennsylvania Quak- 
ers) ; the many who feared above all things 
disorder ; also the very lowest sections of the 
community, the lazy, thriftless, and vicious, 
who hated their progressive neighbors, as in 
the Carolinas; and finally the men who were 
really principled in favor of a kingly govern- 
ment. 

Morris was at first no more sure of his sound- 
ings than were the rest of his companions. 
He was a gentleman of old family, and be- 
longed to the ruling Episcopalian Church. He 
was no friend to tyranny, and he was a 
thorough American, but he had little faith in 
extreme democracy. The Revolution had two 
sides ; in the northern Atlantic States at least it 
was almost as much an uprising of democracy 
against aristocracy as it was a contest between 
America and England ; and the patriotic Amer- 
icans, who nevertheless distrusted ultra-demo- 
cratic ideas, suffered many misgivings when 
they let their love for their country overcome 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 31 

tlieir pride of caste. The " Sons of Liberty," 
a semi-secret society originating among the 
merchants, and very powerful in bringing dis- 
content to a head, now showed signs of degen- 
erating into a mob ; and for mobs MorriB, like 
other clear-headed men, felt the most profound 
dislike and contempt. 

Throughout 1774 he took little part in the 
various commotions, which kept getting more 
and more violent. He was angered by the 
English encroachments, and yet was by no means 
pleased with the measures taken to repel them. 
The gentry, and the moderate men generally, 
were at their wits' ends in trying to lead the 
rest of the people, and were being pushed on 
farther and farther all the time ; the leadership, 
even of the revolutionary party, still rested in 
their hands ; but it grew continually less abso- 
lute. Said Morris ; '' The spirit of the English 
constitution has yet a little influence left, and 
but a little. The remains of it, however, will 
give the wealthy people a superiority this time ; 
but, would they secure it, they must banish all 
schoolmasters and confine all knowledge to 
themselves. . . . The gentry begin to fear this. 
Their committee will be appointed ; they will 
deceive the people, and again forfeit a share of 
their confidence. And if these instances of 
what with one side is policy, with the other per- 



32 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

fidy, shall continue to increase and become more 
frequent, farewell, aristocracy. I see, and see 
it with fear and trembling, that if the dispute 
with Britain continues, we shall be under the 
worst of all possible dominions ; we shall be 
under the dominion of a riotous mob. It is 
the interest of all men, therefore, to seek for 
reunion with the parent state." He then goes 
on to discuss the terms which will make this 
reunion possible, and evidently draws ideas 
from sources as diverse as Rousseau and Pitt, 
statiug, as preliminaries, that when men come 
together in society, there must be an implied 
contract that " a part of their freedom shall be 
given up for the security of the remainder. 
But what part? The answer is plain. The 
least possible, considering the circumstances 
of the society, which constitute what may be 
called its political necessity ; " and again : " In 
every society the members have a right to the 
utmost liberty that can be enjoyed consistent 
with the general safety ; " while he proposes 
the rather wild remedy of divorcing the taxing 
and the governing powers, giving America the 
right to lay her own imposts, and regulate her 
internal police, and reserving to Great Britain 
that to regulate the trade for the entire empire. 
Naturally there was no hope of any com- 
promise of this sort. The British ministry 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 33 

grew more imperious, and tlie Colonies more 
defiant. At last the clash came, and then 
Morris's thorough Americanism and inborn 
love of freedom and impatience of t3a-anny over- 
came any lingering class jealousy, and he cast 
in his lot with his countrymen. Once in, he 
was not of the stuff to waver or look back ; but 
like most other Americans, and like almost all 
New Yorkers, he could not fqr some little time 
realize how hopeless it was to try to close the 
breach with Great Britain. Hostilities had 
gone on for quite a while before even Wash- 
ington could bring himself to believe that a 
lasting separation was inevitable. 

The Assembly, elected, as shown in the pre- 
vious chapter, aJi-'U'moffi^ was 
royalist in tone. Mt containfed JseVeral stanch 
patriots, but the majority, although unwilling 
to back up the British ministers in all their 
doings, were still'^ 3;^ore hostile to the growing 
body of repuBlkaafe-^^'revorutionists. They 
gradually grew wholly out of sympathy with 
the people ; until the latter at last gave up all 
attempts to act through their ordinary repre- 
sentatives, and set about electing delegates who 
should prove more faithful. Thereupon, in 
April, 1775, the last colonial legislature ad- 
journed for all time, and was replaced by suc- 
cessive bodies more in touch with the general 



34 GOUVERNEVR MORRIS. 

sentiment of New York ; that is, by various 
committees, by a convention to elect delegates 
to the Continental Congress, and then by the 
Provincial Congress. The lists of names in 
these bodies show not only how many leading 
men certain families contributed, but also how 
mixed the lineage of such families was ; for 
among the numerous Jays, Livingstons, Lud- 
lows. Van Cortlandts, Roosevelts, Beekmans, 
and others of Dutch, English, and Huguenot 
ancestry appear names as distinctly German, 
Gaelic-Scotch, and Irish, like Hoffman, J\Iul- 
ligan, MacDougall, Connor.^ 

1 The habit of constantly importing indentured Irish ser- 
vants, as well as German laborers, under contract, prevailed 
throughout the colonies ; and the number of men thus im- 
ported was quite sufficient to form a considerable element in 
the population, and to add a new, although perhaps not very 
valuable, strain to our already mixed blood. In taking up at 
random the file of the New York Gazette for 1766, we find 
among the advertisements many offering rewards for runaway 
servants ; such as "three pounds for the runaway servant Con- 
ner O'Kourke," " ten pounds for the runaway Irish servant, 
Philip Maginnis," " five pounds apiece for certain runaway 
German miners — Bruderlein, Baum.Ostmann, etc. — imported 
under contract ; " all this mixed in with advertisements of 
rewards of about the same money value for "the mulatto man 
named Tom," or the " negroes Nero and Pompey." Still, in 
speaking of the revolutionary armies, the word " Irish " must 
almost always be understood as meaning Presbyterian Irish ; 
the Catholic Irish had but little hand in the war, and that little 
was limited to furnishing soldiers to some of the British 
regiments. The Presbyterian Irish, however, in the revolu- 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 35 

To the Provincial Congress, from thenceforth 
on the regular governmental body of the col- 
ony, eighty-one delegates were elected, includ- 
ing Gouverneur Morris from the county of 
Westchester, and seventy were present at the 
first meeting, which took place on May 22 at 
New York. The voting in the Congress was 
done by counties, each being alloted a certain 
number of votes roughly approximating to its 
population. 

Lexington had been fought, and the war had 
already begun in Massachusetts ; but in New 
York, though it was ablaze with sympathy for 
the insurgent New Englanders, the royal author- 
ity was still nominally unquestioned, and there 
had been no collision with the Britisli troops. 
Few, if any, of the people of the colony as yet 
aimed at more than a redress of their grievances 
and the restoration of their rights and liberties ; 
they had still no idea of cutting loose from 
Great Britain. Even such an avowedly popular 
and revolutionary body as the Provincial Con- 
gress contained some few out and out tories and 

tionary armies, played a part as manful and valiant as, and 
even more important than, that taken by the Catholic Irish 
soldiers who served so bravely during the great contest be- 
tween the North and South. The few free Catholic Irish 
already in America in 177G were for the most part heartily 
loyal ; but they were not numerous enough to be of the least 
consequence. 



36 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

very many representatives of that timid, waver- 
ing class, which always halts midwa}^ in any 
course of action, and is ever prone to adopt half- 
measures, — a class which in any crisis works 
quite as much harm as the actively vicious, and 
is almost as much hated and even more despised 
by the energetic men of strong convictions. The 
timid good are never an element of strength 
in a community; but they have always been 
well represented in New York. During the 
Revolutionary War it is not probable that 
much more than half of her people were ever 
in really hearty and active sympathy w4th the 
patriots. 

Morris at once took a prominent place in the 
Congress, and he showed the national bent of 
his mind when he seconded a resolution to the 
effect that implicit obedience ought to be ren- 
dered to the Continental Congress in all mat- 
ters pertaining to the general regulation of the 
associated colonies. The Assembly, however, 
was by no means certain how far it would be 
well to go ; and the majority declined either to 
approve or disapprove of the proceedings of the 
late Continental Congress. They agreed to sub- 
scribe to the association, and recommended the 
same course to their constituents ; but added 
that they did not believe the latter should be 
forced to do so. 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 37 

Still, with all their doubting and faint-heart- 
edness, they did set about preparing for resist- 
ance, and for at least the possibility of con- 
certed action with the other colonies. The first 
step, of course, was to provide for raising funds ; 
this was considered by a committee of which 
Morris was a member, and he prepared and 
drew up their report. In the state of public 
feeling, which was nearly a unit against " tax- 
ation without representation " abroad, but was 
the reverse of unanimous as to submitting even 
to taxation with representation at home, it was 
impossible to raise money by the ordinary 
method ; indeed, though the mass of active pa- 
triots were willing to sacrifice much, perhaps 
all, for the cause, yet there were quite as many 
citizens whose patriotism was lukewarm enough 
already, and could not stand any additional 
chilling. Such people are always willing to 
face what may be called a staved-off sacrifice, 
however; and promises to pay in the future what 
they can, but will not pay in the present, come 
under this head. Besides, there would have 
been other difficulties in the way, and in fact it 
was impossible to raise the amount needed by 
direct taxation. Accordingly Morris, in his re- 
port on behalf of the committee, recommended 
an issue of paper money, and advised that this 
should not be done by the colony itself, but that 



38 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

the Continental Congress should strike the 
whole sum needed, and apportion the several 
shares to the different colonies, each of them 
being bound to discharge its own particular 
part, and all together to be liable for whatever 
any particular colony was unable to pay. This 
plan secured a wide credit and circulation to 
the currency, and, what was equally desirable, 
created throughout the colonies a common in- 
terest and common responsibility on a most im- 
portant point, and greatly strengthened the 
bonds of their union. Morris even thus early 
showed the breadth of his far-seeing patriotism ; 
he was emphatically an American first, a New 
Yorker next ; the whole tone of his mind was 
thoroughly national. He took the chief part 
in urging the adoption of the report, and made 
a most telling speech in its favor before the 
Assembly, a mixed audience of the prominent 
men of the colony being also present. The 
report was adopted and forwarded to the Con- 
tinental Congress ; Morris was felt on all sides 
to have already taken his place among the lead- 
ers, and from thenceforth he was placed on al- 
most every important committee of the Pro- 
vincial Congress. 

This body kept on its course, corresponding 
with the other colonies, exchanging thinly 
veiled threats with the Johnsons, the powerful 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 39 

Tory over-lords of the upper Mohawk, and pre- 
paring rather feebly for defense, being ham- 
pered by a total lack of funds or credit until 
the continental currency was coined. But they 
especially busied themselves with a plan of 
reconciliation with England ; and in fact were 
so very cautious and moderate as to be re- 
proached by their chosen agent in England, 
Edmund Burke, for their "scrupulous timidity." 
The Congress, by the way, showed some symp- 
toms of an advance in toleration, at least so far 
as the Protestant sects went ; for it was opened 
and closed by ministers of the Episcopalian, 
Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, and 
other sects, each in turn ; but> as will shortly 
be seen, the feeling against Catholics was quite 
as narrow-minded and intense as ever. This 
was natural enough in colonial days, when 
Protestantism and national patriotism were 
almost interchangeable terms ; for the heredi- 
tary and embittered foes of the Americans, the 
French and Spaniards, were all Catholics, and 
even many of the Indians were of the same 
faith ; and undoubtedly the wonderful increase 
in the spirit of tolerance shown after the Revo- 
lution was due in part to the change of the 
Catholic French into our allies, and of the Pro- 
testant English into our most active foes. It 
must be remembered, however, that the Catholic 



40 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

gentry of Maryland played the same part in 
the Revolution that their Protestant neighbors 
did. One of the famous Carroll family was 
among the signers of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence ; and on the other hand, one of the 
Cliftons was a noted loyalist leader. 

Morris took a prominent part, both in and 
out of committee, in trying to shape the plan 
of reconciliation, although utterly disapprov- 
ing of many of the ways in which the subject 
was handled; for he had all the contempt 
natural to most young men of brains, decision, 
and fiery temper, for his timid, short-sighted, 
and prolix colleagues. The report was not all 
to his taste in the final shape in which it was 
adopted. It consisted of a series of articles 
recommending the repeal of the obnoxious 
statutes of the Imperial Parliament, the reg- 
ulation of trade for the benefit of the whole 
empire, the establishment of triennial colonial 
legislatures, and also asserting the right of the 
colonies to manage their internal polity to 
suit themselves, and their willingness to do 
their part, according to their capacities, for the 
general defense of the em.pire. The eighth ar- 
ticle contained a denial of the right of " Great 
Britain, or any other earthly legislature or 
tribunal, to interfere in the ecclesiastical or 
religious concerns of the colonies," together 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 41 

with a" protest against the indulgence and es- 
tabhshment of popery all along their interior 
confines ; " this being called forth by what was 
known as the " Quebec Bill." whereby the 
British Parliament had recently granted extraor- 
dinary powers and privileges to the Canadian 
clergy, with the obvious purpose of conciliating 
that powerful priesthood, and thereby convert-' 
ing — as was actually done — the recently con- 
quered French of the St. Lawrence valley into 
efficient allies of the British government against 
the old Protestant colonies. 

This eighth article was ridiculous, and was 
especially objected to by Morris. In one of his 
vigorous, deliciously fresh, and humorous letters, 
dated June 30, 1775, and addressed to John 
Jay, then in the Continental Congress, he 
writes : — 

The foolish religious business I opposed until I was 
weary ; it was carried by a very small majority, and 
my dissent entered. . . . The article about religion 
is most arrant nonsense, and would do as well in a 
high Dutch Bible as the place it now stands in. 

I drew a long report for our committee, to which 
they could make no objections excepting that none of 
them could understand it. ... I was pleased at the 
rejection, because, as I observed to you before, I think 
the question ought to be simplified. 

I address this letter to you, but I shall be glad [if] 



42 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

you will read it to Livingstone, for I intend it for 
both of you ; make my compliments to him, and tell 
him that I shall write to him when I have time to 
write a good letter — this is a damned bad one, and 
would not exist, if I did not think it a duty to my- 
self to show my friends that I had no hand in that 
foolish religious business, I am, as you well know, 
.j^our friend, etc. 

Morris did not believe in a colonial assem- 
bly making overtures for a reconciliation, as lie 
tliouglit this was the province of the Continen- 
tal Congress. The majority was against him, 
but he was a clever politician and parliamen- 
tary tactician, as well as a great statesman, and 
he fairly outwitted and hoodwinked his oppo- 
nents, persuading them finally to adopt the re- 
port in the form of a mere expression of opinions 
to be sent to their congressional delegates, with 
a prayer that the latter would " use every effort 
for the compromising of this unnatural quarrel 
between the parent and child." In this shape it 
was forwarded to' the delegates, who answered 
that they would do all in their power to com- 
promise the quarrel, and added a postscript, 
written by Jay himself, to the effect that tbey 
deemed it better not to make any mention of 
the religious article before the Congress, as 
they thought it wise to bury " all disputes on 
ecclesiastical points, wdiich have for ages had 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 43 

no other tendency than that of banishing peace 
and charity from the world." 

While all this was pending, and though 
Bunker Hill had been fought, and the war was 
in full progress round Boston, New York yet 
maintained what might almost be described as 
an attitude of armed neutrality. The city was 
so exposed to the British war-ships in the bay, 
and the surrounding population was so doubt- 
ful, that the patriot party dared not take the 
deciding steps, especially as so many of its 
members still clung to the hope of a peaceful 
settlement. Morris announced frankly that he 
did not believe in breaking the peace until they 
were prepared to take the consequences. In- 
deed, when the few British troops left the city to 
join the garrison in Boston, he strongly opposed 
the action of the Sons of Liberty, who gathered 
hastily together, and took away the cartloads 
of arms and ammunition that the soldiers were 
taking with them. The Congress, to their 
honor, discouraged, to the best of their power, 
the rioting and mobbing of Tories in the city. 

In fact. New York's position was somewhat 
like that of Kentucky at the outbreak of the 
Civil War. Her backwardness in definitely 
throwing in her lot with the revolutionists 
was clearly brought out by a rather ludicrous 
incident. General Washington, on his way 



44 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

to take command of the continental army- 
round Boston, passed through New York the 
same day the royal governor, Tryon, arrived 
by sea, and the authorities were cast into a 
great quandary as to how they should treat two 
such kings of Brentford when the one rose was 
so small. Finally they compromised by send- 
ing a guard of honor to attend each ; Mont- 
gomery and Morris, as delegates from the 
Assembly, received Washington and brought 
him before that bod}^, which addressed him in 
terms of cordial congratulation, but ended with 
a noteworthy phrase, — that " when the con- 
test should be decided by an accommodation 
.■with the mother country, he should deliver up 
the important deposit that had been confided 
to his hands." 

These words give us the key to the situation. 
Even the patriots of the colony could not re- 
alize that there was no hope of an "accommo- 
dation " ; and they were hampered at every 
step by the fear of the British frigates, and of 
the numerous Tories. The latter were very bold 
and defiant ; when Congress tried to disarm 
them, they banded themselves together, bade 
the authorities defiance, and plainly held the 
upper land on Staten Island and in Queens 
County. New York furnished many excellent 
soldiers to the royal armies during the war, and 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 45 

from among her gentry came the most famous 
of the Tory leaders, — such as Johnson and 
De Lancey, whose prowess was felt by the hap- 
less people of their own native province ; De 
Peyster, who was Ferguson's second in command 
at King's Mountain ; and Cruger, who, in the 
Carolinas, inflicted a check upon Greene him- 
self. The Tories were helped also by the jeal- 
ousy felt towards some of the other colonies, 
especially Connecticut, whose people took the 
worst possible course for the patriot side by 
threatening to " crush down " New York, and 
by finally furnishing an armed and mounted 
mob which rode suddenly into the city, and 
wrecked the office of an obnoxious loyalist 
printer named Rivington. This last proceed- 
ing caused great indignation, and nearly made 
a split in the revolutionary camp. 

New York had thus some cause for her in- 
action ; nevertheless, her lack of boldness and 
decision were not creditable to her, and she laid 
herself open to just reproaches. Nor can 
Morris himself be altogether freed from the 
charge of having clung too long to the hope 
of a reconciliation and to a policy of half 
measures. He was at that time chairman of 
a legislative committee which denounced any 
projected invasion of Canada (therein, how- 
ever, only following the example of the Con- 



46 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

tinental Congress), and refused to allow Ethan 
Allen to undertake one, as that adventurous 
partisan chieftain requested. But Morris was 
too clear-sighted to occupy a doubtful position 
long ; and he now began to see things clearly 
as they were, and to push his slower or more 
timid associates forward along the path which 
they had set out to tread. He was instrumen- 
tal in getting the militia into somewhat better 
shape; and, as it was found impossible to get 
enough continental money, a colonial paper 
currei\cy was issued. In spite of the quarrel 
with Connecticut, a force from that province 
moved in to take part in the defense of New 
York. 

Yet, in the main, the policy of the New York 
Congress still continued both weak and change- 
able, and no improvement was effected when it 
was dissolved and a second elected. To this 
body the loyalist counties of Richmond and 
Queens refused to return delegates, and through- 
out the colony affairs grew more disorderl}^ and 
the administration of justice came nearly to a 
standstill. Finding that the local congress 
seemed likely to remain unable to make up 
its mind how to act, the continental leaders at 
last took matters into their own hands, and 
marched a force into New York city early in 
February, 1776. This had a most bracing 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 47 

effect upon the provincial authorities ; yet they 
still continued to allow the British war-ships in 
the bay to be supplied with provisions, nor was 
this attitude altered until in April Washington 
arrived with the main continental army. He 
at once insisted that a final break should be 
made ; and about the same time the third Pro- 
vincial Congress was elected. Morris, again 
returned for Westchester, headed the bolder 
spirits, who had now decided that the time had 
come to force their associates out of their wa- 
vering course, and to make them definitely cast 
in their lot with their fellow Americans. Things 
had come to a point which made a decision 
necessary ; the gathering of the continental 
forces on Manhattan Island and the threaten- 
ing attitude of the British fleet and army made 
it impossible for even the most timid to keep 
on lingering in a state of uncertainty. So the 
Declaration of Independence was ratified, and 
a state constitution organized ; then the die was 
cast, and thereafter New York manfully stood 
by the result of the throw. 

The two Provincial Congresses that decided 
on this course held their sessions in a time of 
the greatest tumult, Avhen New York was 
threatened hourly by the British ; and long 
before their work was ended they had hastily to 
leave the city. Before describing what they 



48 



GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 



did, a glance should be taken at the circum- 
stances under which it was done. 

The peaceable citizens, especially those with 
any property, gradually left New York ; and 
it remained in possession of the raw levies of 
the continentals, while Staten Island received 
Howe with open arms, and he was enabled 
without difficulty to disembark his great force 
of British and German mercenaries on Long 
Island. The much smaller, motley force op- 
posed to him, unorganized, ill armed, and led 
by utterly inexperienced men, was beaten, with 
hardly an effort, in the battle that followed, and 
only escaped annihilation through the skill of 
Washington and the supine blundering of 
Howe. Then it was whipped up the Hudson 
and beyond the borders of the State, the broken 
remnant fleeing across New Jersey ; and though 
the brilliant feats of arms at Trenton and 
Princeton enabled the Americans to reconquer 
the latter province, southern New York lay 
under the heel of the British till the close of 
the war. 

Thus Morris, Jay, and the other New York 
leaders were obliged for six years to hold up 
their cause in a half-conquered State, a very 
large proportion of whose population was luke- 
warm or hostile. The odds were heavy against 
the patriots, because their worst foes were those 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 49 

of their own household. English writers are 
fond of insisting upon the alleged fact that 
America only won her freedom by the help of 
foreign nations. Such help was certainly most 
important, but, on the other hand, it must be 
remembered that during the first and vital years 
of the contest the revolutionary colonists had to 
struggle unaided against the British,their mercen- 
ary German and Indian allies, Tories, and even 
French Canadians. When the French court 
declared in our favor the worst was already 
over ; Trenton had been won, Burgoyne had 
been captured, and Valley Forge was a memory 
of the past. 

We did not owe our main disasters to the 
might of our foes, nor our final triumph to 
the help of our friends. It was on our own 
strength that we had to rely, and it was with 
our own folly and weakness that we had to 
contend. The revolutionary leaders can never 
be too highly praised ; but taken in bulk the 
Americans of the last quarter of the eighteenth 
century do not compare to advantage with the 
Americans of the third quarter of the nineteenth. 
In our Civil War it was the people who pressed 
on the leaders, and won almost as much in spite 
of as because of them ; but the leaders of the 
Revolution had to goad the rank and file into 
line. They were forced to contend not only 



60 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

with the active hostility of the Tories, but with 
the passive neutrality of the indifferent, and 
the selfishness, jealousy, and short-sightedness 
of the patriotic. Had the Americans of 1776 
been united, and had they possessed the stub- 
born, unyielding tenacity and high devotion to 
an ideal shown by the North, or the heroic con- 
stancy and matchless valor shown by the South, 
in the Civil War, the British would have been 
driven off the continent before three years 
were over. 

It is probable that nearly as great a propor- 
tion of our own people were actively or pas- 
sively opposed to the formation of our union 
originally as were in favor of its dissolution in 
1860. This was one of the main reasons why 
the war dragged on so long. It may be seen 
by the fact, among others, that when in the 
Carolinas and Georgia a system of relentless 
and undying partisan warfare not only crushed 
the Tories, but literally destroyed them from off 
the face of the earth, then the British, though 
still victorious in almost every pitched battle, 
were at once forced to abandon the field. 

Another reason was the inferior military 
capacity of the revolutionary armies. The con- 
tinental troops, when trained, were excellent; 
but in almost every battle they were mixed 
with more or less worthless militia; and of the 



THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION. 51 

soldiers thus obtained all that can be said is 
that their officers could never be sure that 
they would fight, nor their enemies that they 
would run away. The revolutionary troops 
certainly fell short of the standard reached 
by the volunteers who fought Shiloh and Get- 
tysburg. The British rarely found them to be 
such foes as they afterwards met at New Or- 
leans and Lundy's Lane. Throughout the 
Revolution the militia were invariably leaving 
their posts at critical times; they would grow 
either homesick or dejected, and would then 
go home at the very crisis of the campaign ; 
they did not begin to show the stubbornness 
and resolution to "see the war through" so 
common among their descendants in the con- 
tending Federal and Confederate armies. 

The truth is that in 1776 our main task was 
to shape new political conditions, and then to 
reconcile our people to them ; whereas in 1860 
we had merely to fight fiercely for the preser- 
vation of what was already ours. In the first 
emergency we needed statesmen, and in the 
second warriors ; and the statesmen and warriors 
were forthcoming. A comparision of the men 
who came to the front during these, the two 
heroic periods of the Republic, brings out this 
point clearly. 

Washington, alike statesman, soldier, and 



52 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

patriot, stands alone. He was not only the 
greatest American; lie was also one of the 
greatest men the world has ever known. Few 
centuries and few countries have ever seen his 
like. Among the people of English stock there 
is none to compare with him, unless perhaps 
Cromwell, utterly different though the latter 
was. Of Americans, Lincoln alone is worthy 
to stand even second. 

As for our other statesmen: Franklin, Hamil- 
ton, Jefferson, Adams, and their fellows, most 
surely stand far above Seward, Sumner, Chase, 
Stanton, and Stevens, great as were the services 
which these, and those like them, rendered. 

But when we come to the fighting men, all this 
is reversed. As a mere military man Washing- 
ton himself cannot rank with the wonderful 
war-chief who for four years led the Army of 
Northern Virginia ; and the names of Wash- 
ington and Greene fill up the short list of 
really good Revolutionary Generals. Against 
these the Civil War shows a roll that contains 
not only Lee, but also Grant and Sherman, 
Jackson and Johnson, Thomas, Sheridan, and 
Farragut, — leaders whose volunteer soldiers 
and sailors, at the end of their four years' ser- 
vice, were ready and more than able to match 
themselves against the best regular forces of 
Europe. 



CHAPTER III. 

INDEPENDENCE : FOEMING THE STATE 
CONSTITUTION. 

The third Provincial Congress, which came 
together in May, and before the close of its 
sessions was obliged to adjourn to White Plains, 
had to act on the Declaration of Independence, 
and provide for the foundation of a new state 
government. 

Morris now put himself at the head of the 
patriotic party, and opened the proceedings by 
a long and very able speech in favor of adopt- 
ing the recommendation of the Continental 
Congress that the colonies should form new 
governments. In his argument he went at 
length into the history and growth of the dis- 
pute with Great Britain, spoke of the efforts 
made in the past for reconciliation, and then 
showed clearly how such efforts were now not 
only hopeless, but also no longer compatible 
with the dignity and manhood of Americans. 
He sneered at those who argued that we ought 
to submit to Great Britain for the sake of the 



54 GOUVERNKUR MORRIS. 

protection we got from her. " Great Britain 
will not fail to bring us into a war with some 
of her neighbors, and then protect us as a 
lawyer defends a suit : the client paying for it. 
This is quite in form, but a wise man would, I 
think, get rid of the suit and the lawyer to- 
gether. Again, how are we to be protected ? 
If a descent is made upon our coasts and the 
British navy and army are three thousand miles 
off, we cannot receive very great benefit from 
them on' that occasion. If, to obviate this 
inconvenience, we have an army and navy con- 
stantly among us, who can say that we shall 
not need a little protection against themf^ He 
went on to point out the hopelessness of expect- 
ing Great Britain to keep to any terms which 
would deprive Parliament of its supremacy over 
America ; for no succeeding Parliament could 
be held bound by the legislation of its prede- 
cessor, and the very acknowledgment of British 
supremacy on the part of the Americans would 
bind them as subjects, and make the supremacy 
of Parliament legitimate. He bade his hearers 
remember the maxim " that no faith is to be 
kept with rebels ; " and said : " In this case, or 
in any other case, if we fancy ourselves hardly 
dealt with, I maintain there is no redress but 
by arms. For it never yet was known that, 
when men assume power, they will part with it 
again, unless by compulsion." 



INDEPENDENCE. 55 

He then took up the subject of independence, 
showed, for the benefit of the good but timid 
men who were frightened at the mere title, 
that, in all but name, it already existed in New 
York, and proved that its maintenance was 
essential to our well-being. "My argument, 
therefore, stands thus : As a connection with 
Great Britain cannot again exist without en- 
slaving America, an independence is absolutely 
necessary. I cannot balance between the two. 
We run a hazard in one path, I confess ; but 
then we are infallibly ruined if we pursue the 
other. . . . We find the characteristic marks 
and insignia of independence in this society, 
considered in itself and compared with other 
societies. The enumeration is conviction. Coin- 
ing moneys, raising armies, regulating com- 
merce, peace, war : all these things you are not 
only adepts in, but masters of. Treaties alone 
remain, and even those you have dabbled at. 
Georgia j^ou put under the ban of empire, and 
received her upon repentance as a member of 
the flock. Canada you are now treating with. 
France and Spain you ought to treat with, and 
the rest is but a name. I believe, sir, the Ro- 
mans were as much governed, or rather op- 
pressed, by their emperors, as ever any people 
were by their king. But emperor was more 
agreeable to their ears than king. [So] some, 



56 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

nay, many, persons in America dislike the word 
independence." 

He then went on to show how independence 
would work well alike for our peace, liberty, and 
security. Considering the first, he laughed at 
the apprehensions expressed by some that the 
moment America was independent all the powers 
of Europe would pounce down on her, to parcel 
out the country among themselves ; and showed 
clearly that to a European power any war of 
conquest in America would be " tedious, ex- 
pensive, uncertain, and ruinous," and that none 
of the country could be kept even if it should 
come to pass that some little portion of it were 
conquered. "But I cannot think it will ever 
come to this. For wdien I turn my eyes to the 
means of defense, I find them amply sufficient. 
We have all heard that in the last war America 
was conquered in Germany. I hold the con- 
verse of this to be true, namely, that in and 
by America his Majesty's German dominions 
were secured. ... I expect a full and lasting 
defense against any and every part of the 
earth." After thus treating of the advantages 
to be hoped for on the score of peace, he turns 
attention "to a question of infinitely greater im- 
portance, namely, the liberty of this country ; " 
and afterwards passes to the matter of security, 
which, "so long as the system of laws by which 



INDEPENDENCE. 67 

we are now governed shall prevail, is amply pro- 
vided for in every separate colony. There may 
indeed arise an objection because some gentle- 
men suppose that the different colonies will 
carry on a sort of land piracy against one an- 
other. But how this can possibly happen when 
the idea of separate colonies no longer exists I 
cannot for my soul comprehend. That some- 
thing very like this has already been done I 
shall not deny, but the reason is as evident as 
the fact. We never yet had a government in 
this country of sufficient energy to restrain the 
lawless and indigent. Whenever a form of 
government is established which deserves the 
name, these insurrections must cease. But who 
is the man so hardy as to affirm that they will 
not grow with our growth, while on every occa- 
sion we must resort to an English judicature 
to terminate differences which the maxims of 
policy will teach them to leave undetermined ? 
By degrees we are getting beyond the utmost 
pale of English government. Settlements are 
forming to the westward of us, whose inhabi- 
tants acknowledge no authority but their own." 
In one sentence he showed rather a change of 
heart, as regarded liis former aristocratic lean- 
ings ; for he reproached those who were " ap- 
prehensive of losing a little consequence and 
importance by living in a country where all 



68 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

are on an equal footing," and predicted that we 
should " cause all nations to resort hither as an 
asylum from oppression." 

The speech was remarkable for its incisive 
directness and boldness, for the exact clearness 
with which it portrayed things as they were, 
for the broad sense of American nationality 
that it displayed, and for the accurate forecasts 
that it contained as to our future course in cer- 
tain particulars, — such as freedom from Euro- 
pean wars and entanglements, a strong but 
purely defensive foreign policy, the encourage- 
ment of the growth of the West, while keeping 
it united to us, and the throwing open our doors 
to the oppressed from abroad. 

Soon after the delivery of this speech news 
came that the Declaration of Independence had 
been adopted by the Continental Congress ; and 
Jay, one of the New York delegates to this 
body, and also a member of the Provincial 
Congress, drew up for the latter a resolution 
emphatically indorsing the declaration, which 
was at once adopted without a dissenting voice. 
At the same time the Provincial Congress 
changed its name to that of " The Convention of 
the Representatives of the State of New York." 

These last acts were done by a body that had 
been elected, with increased power, to succeed 
the third Provincial Congress and provide for 



INDEPENDENCE. 5 9 

a new constitution. Just before this, Morris had 
been sent to the Continental Congress in Phila- 
delphia to complain that the troops from New 
England were paid more largely than those 
from the other colonies ; a wrong which was at 
once redressed, the wages of the latter being 
raised, and Morris returned to New York in 
triumph after only a week's absence. 

The Constitutional Convention of New York 
led a most checkered life ; for the victorious 
British chevied it up and down the State, hunt- 
ing it in turn from every small town in which 
it thought to have found a peaceful haven of 
refuse. At last it rested in Fiskhill, such an 
out-of-the-way place as to be free from danger. 
The members were obliged to go armed, so as 
to protect themselves from stray marauding 
parties; and the number of delegates in at- 
tendance alternately dwindled and swelled in 
a wonderful manner, now resolving themselves 
into a committee of safety, and again resuming 
their functions as members of the convention. 

The most important duties of the convention 
were intrusted to two committees. Of the first, 
which was to draft a plan for the Constitution, 
Morris, Jay, and Livingston were the three 
leading members, upon whom all the work fell ; 
of the second, which was to devise means for the 
establishment of a state fund, Morris was the 
chairman and moving spirit. 



60 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

He was also chairman of a committee whicli 
was appointed to look after the Tories, and pre- 
vent them from joining together and rising ; 
and so numerous were they that the jails were 
soon choked with those of their number who, 
on account of their prominence or bitterness, 
were most obnoxious to the patriots. Also a 
partial system of confiscation of Tory estates 
was begun. So greatly were the Tories feared 
and hated, and so determined were the at- 
tempts to deprive them of even the shadow of 
a chance to do harm, by so much as a word, that 
the convention sent a memorial, drafted by 
Morris, to the Continental Congress, in which 
they made the very futile suggestion that it 
should take " some measures for expunging 
from the Book of Common Prayer such parts, 
and discontinuing in the congregations of all 
other denominations all such prayers, as inter- 
fere with the interests of the American cause." 
The resolution was not acted on ; but another 
part of the memorial shows how the Church 
of England men were standing by the mother 
country, for it goes on to recite that " the 
enemies of America have taken great pains to 
insinuate into the minds of the Episcopalians 
that the church is in danger. We could wish 
the Congress would pass some resolve to quiet 
their fears, and we are confident that it would 



INDEPENDENCE. 61 

do essential service to the cause of America, at 
least in this State." 

Morris's position in regard to the Tories was 
a peculiar!}'' hard one, because among their 
number were many of his own relatives, in- 
cluding his elder brother. The family house, 
where his mother resided, was within the 
British lines ; and not only did he feel the dis- 
approval of such of his people as were loyalists, 
on the one side, but, on the other, his letters 
to his family caused him to be regarded with 
suspicion by the baser spirits in the American 
party. About this time one of his sisters died ; 
the letter he then wrote to his mother is in the 
usual formal style of the time, yet it shows marks 
of deep feeling, and he takes occasion, while 
admitting that the result of the war was un- 
certain, to avow, with a sternness unusual to 
him, his intention to face all things rather than 
abandon the patriot cause. " The worst that 
can happen is to fall on the last bleak moun- 
tain of America ; and he who dies there in 
defense of the injured rights of mankind is 
happier than his conqueror, more beloved by 
mankind, more applauded by his own heart." 
The letter closes by a characteristic touch, when 
he sends his love to '' such as deserve it. The 
number is not great." 

The committee on the constitution was not 



62 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

ready to report until March, 1777. Then the 
convention devoted itself solely to the considera- 
tion of the report, which, after several weeks' 
discussion, was adopted with ver}^ little change. 
Jay and Morris led the debate before the 
convention, as they had done previously in 
committee. There was perfect agreement upon 
the general principles. Freehold suffrage was 
adopted, and a majority of the freeholders of the 
State were thus the ultimate governing power. 
The executive, judicial, and legislative powers 
were separated sharply, as was done in the 
other States, and later on in the Federal Con- 
stitution as well. The legislative body was 
divided into two chambers. 

It was over the executive branch that the 
main contest arose. It was conceded that this 
should be nominally single headed ; that is, 
that there should be a governor. But the 
members generall}^ could not realize how dif- 
ferent was a governor elected by the people 
and responsible to them, from one appointed by 
an alien and higher power to rule over them, as 
in the colonial days. The remembrance of the 
contests with the ro3^al governors was still fresh ; 
and the mere name of governor frightened 
them. They had the same illogical fear of the 
executive that the demagogues of to-day (and 
some honest but stupid people, as well) profess 



INDEPENDENCE. 63 

to feel for a standing army. Men often let 
the dread of the shadow of a dead wrong 
frighten them into courting a living evil. 

Morris himself was wonderfully clear-sighted 
and cool-headed. He did not let the memory 
of the wrong -doing of the royal governors 
blind him ; he saw that the trouble with them 
lay, not in the power that they held, but in the 
source from which that power came. Once the 
source was changed, the power was an advan- 
tage, not a harm, to the State. Yet few or none 
of his companions could see this ; and they 
nervously strove to save their new State from 
the danger of executive usurpation by trying 
to make the executive practically a board of 
men instead of one man, and by crippling it so 
as to make it ineffective for good, while at the 
same time dividing the responsibility, so that 
no one need be afraid to do evil. Above all, 
they were anxious to take away from the gov- 
ernor the appointment of the military and civil 
servants of the State. 

Morris had persuaded the committee to leave 
the appointment of these officials to the gov- 
ernor, the legislature retaining the power of 
confirmation or rejection ; but the convention, 
under the lead of Ja}^, rejected this proposi- 
tion, and after some discussion adopted in its 
place the cumbrous and foolish plan of a 



64 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

"council of appointment," to consist of the 
governor and several senators. As might have 
been expected, this artificial body worked noth- 
ing but harm, and became simply a peculiarly 
odious political machine. 

Again, Morris advocated giving the governor 
a qualified veto over the acts passed by the 
legislature ; but instead of such a simple and 
straightforward method of legislative revision, 
the convention saw fit to adopt a companion 
piece of foolishness to the council of appoint- 
ment, in the shape of the equally complicated 
and anomalous council ofjrevision, consisting of 
the governor, chancellor, and judges of the su- 
preme court, by whom all the acts of the legis- 
lature had to be revised before they could 
become laws. It is marvelous that these two 
bodies should have lived on so long as they did 
— over forty years. 

The convention did one most praiseworthy 
thing in deciding in favor of complete religious 
toleration. This seems natural enough now ; 
but at that time there was hardly a European 
state that practiced it. Great Britain harassed 
her Catholic subjects in a hundred different 
ways, while in France Protestants were treated 
far worse, and, in fact, could scarcely be re- 
garded as having any legal standing whatever. 
On no other one point do the statesmen of the 



INDEPENDENCE. 65 

Revolution show to more marked advantage 
when compared with their European compeers 
than in this of complete religious toleration. 
Their position was taken, too, simply because 
they deemed it to be the right and proper one ; 
they had nothing to fear or hope from Catholics, 
and their own interests were in no wise ad- 
vanced by what they did in the matter. 

But in the New York convention toleration 
was not obtained without a fight. There al- 
ways rankled in Jay's mind the memory of the 
terrible cruelty wrought by Catholics on his 
Huguenot forefathers ; and he introduced into 
the article on toleration an appendix, which dis- 
criminated against the adherents of the Churcli 
of Rome, denying them the rights of citizen- 
ship until they should solemnly swear before 
the supreme court, first, '' that they verily be- 
lieve in their conscience that no pope, priest, or 
foreign authority on earth has power to absolve 
the subjects of this State from their allegiance 
to the same ; " and, second, " that they renounce 
. . . the dangerous and damnable doctrine that 
the Pope or any other earthly authority has 
power to absolve men from sins described in 
and prohibited by the Holy Gospel." This 
second point, however important, was of purely 
theological interest, and had absolutely nothing 
to do with the state constitution ; as to the 

5 



6G GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

first proposition, it might have been proper 
enough had there been the least chance of a 
conflict between the Pope, either in his temporal 
or his ecclesiastical capacity, and the United 
States ; but as there was no possibility of such 
a conflict arising, and as, if it did arise, there 
would not be the slightest danger of the United 
States receiving any damage, to put the sen- 
tence in would have been not only useless, but 
exceedingly foolish and harmful, on account of 
the intense irritation it would have excited. 

The whole clause was rejected by a two to 
one vote, and then all the good that it aimed 
at was accomplished by the adoption, on the 
motion of Morris, of a proviso that the tolera- 
tion granted should not be held to "justify 
practices inconsistent with the peace and safety 
of this State." This proviso of Morris re- 
mains in the Constitution to this day ; and thus, 
while absolute religious liberty is guaranteed, 
the State reserves to itself full right of protec- 
tion, if necessary, against the adherents of any 
religious body, foreign or domestic, if they 
menace the public safety. 

On a question even more important than 
religious toleration, namely, the abolition of 
domestic slavery. Jay and Morris fought side 
by side ; but though the more enlightened of 
their fellow- members went with them, they 



INDEPENDENCE. 67 

were a little too mucli in advance of the age, 
and failed. They made every effort to have a 
clause introduced into the constitution recom- 
mending to the future legislature of New York 
to abolish slavery as soon as it could be done 
consistently with the public safety and the 
rights of property; "so that in future ages every 
human being who breathes the air of this State 
shall enjoy the privileges of a free man." Al- 
though they failed in their immediate purpose, 
yet they had much hearty support, and by the 
bold stand they took and the high ground they 
occupied they undoubtedly brought nearer the 
period when the abolition of slavery in New 
York became practicable. 

The Constitution was finally adopted by the 
convention almost unanimously, and went into 
effect forthwith, as there was no ratification by 
the people at large. 

As soon as it was adopted a committee, which 
included Morris, Jay, and Livingston, was ap- 
pointed to start and organize the new govern- 
ment. The courts of justice were speedily put 
in running order, and thus one of the most cry- 
ing evils that affected the State was remedied. 
A council of safety of fifteen members — again 
including Morris — was established to act as 
the provincial government, until the regular 
legislature should convene. An election for 



68 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

governor was also held almost immediately, 
and Clinton was chosen. He was then serving 
in the field, where he had done good work, and, 
together with his brother James, had fought 
with the stubborn valor that seems to go with 
Anglo-Irish blood. He did not give up his 
command until several months after he was 
elected, although meanwhile keeping up con- 
stant communication with the council of safety, 
through whom he acted in matters of state. 

Meanwhile Burgoyne, with his eight or nine 
thousand troops, excellently drilled British 
and Hessians, assisted by Tories, Canadians, 
and Indians, had crossed the northern frontier, 
and was moving down towards the heart of 
the already disorganized State, exciting the 
wildest panic and confusion. The council of 
safety hardly knew how to act, and finally sent 
a committee of two, Morris being one, to the 
headquarters of General Schuyler, who had the 
supreme command over all the troops in the 
northern part of New York. 

On Morris's arrival he found affairs at a very 
low ebb, and at once wrote to describe this con- 
dition to the president of the council of safet}^. 
Burgoyne's army had come steadily on. He 
first destroyed Arnold's flotilla on Lake Cham- 
plain. Then he captured the forts along the 
Lakes, and utterly wrecked the division of the 



INDEPENDENCE. 69 

American army that had been told off to defend 
them, under the very unfortunate General St. 
Clair. He was now advancing through the great 
reaches of wooded wilderness towards the head 
of the Hudson. Schuyler, a general of fair 
capacity, was doing what he could to hold the 
enemy back ; but his one efficient supporter was 
the wilderness itself, through which the British 
army stumbled painfully along. Schuyler had 
in all less than five thousand men, half of them 
short service continental troops, the other half 
militia. The farmers would not turn out until 
after harvest home ; all the bodies of militia, 
especially those from New England, were very 
insubordinate and of most fickle temper, and 
could not be depended on for any sustained 
contest ; as an example. Stark, under whose 
nominal command the northern New Ensrland- 
ers won the battle of Bennington, actually 
marched off his whole force the day before the 
battle of Stillwater, alleging the expiration of 
the term of service of his soldiers as an excuse for 
what looked like gross treachery or cowardice, 
but was probably merely sheer selfish wrong- 
headedness and mean jealousy. Along the Mo- 
hawk valley the dismay was extreme, and the 
militia could not be got out at all. Jay was so 
angered by the abject terror in this quarter that 
he advised leaving the inhabitants to shift for 



70 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

themselves ; sound advice, too, for when the 
pinch came and they were absolutely forced 
to take arms, they did very fairly at Oriskany. 
It was even feared that the settlers of the re- 
gion which afterwards became Vermont would 
go over to the enemy ; still, time and space were 
in our favor, and Morris was quite right when 
he said in his first letter (dated July 16, 1777) : 
" Upon the whole I think we shall do very- 
well, but this opinion is founded merely upon 
the barriers which nature has raised against 
all access from the northward." As he said of 
himself, he was " a good guesser." 

He outlined the plan wliicli he thought the 
Americans should follow. This was to harass 
the British in every way, without risking a 
stand-up fight, while laying waste the country 
through which they were to pass so as to render 
it impossible for an army to subsist on it. For 
the militia he had the most hearty contempt, 
writing : " Three hundred of the militia of 
Massachusetts Bay went off this morning, in 
spite of the opposition — we should have said, en- 
treaties — of tlieir officers. All the militia on the 
ground are so heartily tired, and so extremely 
desirous of getting home, that it is more than 
probable that none of them will remain here 
ten days longer. One half was discharged two 
days ago, to silence, if possible, their clamor ; 



INDEPENDENCE. 71 

and the remainder, officers excepted, will soon 
discbarge themselves." 

The council of safety grew so nervous over the 
outlook that their letters became fairly queru- 
lous ; and they not unnaturally asked Morris to 
include in his letters some paragraphs that could 
be given to the public. To this that rather 
quick-tempered gentleman took exceptions, and 
replied caustically in his next letter, the open- 
ing paragraph being : "We have received yours 
of the 19th, which has afforded us great pleas- 
ure, since we are enabled in some measure to 
collect from it our errand to the northward, 
one of the most important objects of our journey 
being, in the opinion of your honorable body, 
to write the news," and he closes by stating 
that he shall come back to wait upon them, and 
learn their pleasure, at once. 

Meanwhile the repeated disasters in the north 
had occasioned much clamor against Schuyler, 
who, if not a brilliant general, had still done 
what he could in very trying circumstances, 
and was in no wise responsible for the various 
mishaps that had occurred. The New England 
members ^of Congress, always jealous of New 
York, took advantage of this to begin intrigu- 
ing against him, under the lead of Roger 
Sherman and others, and finally brought about 
his replacement by Gates, a much inferior man, 



72 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

with no capacity whatever for command. Mor- 
ris and Jay both took up Schuyler's cause very 
warmly, seeing clearly, in the first place, that 
the disasters were far from ruinous, and that a 
favorable outcome was probable; and, in the 
second place, that it was the people themselves 
who were to blame and not Schuyler. They 
went on to Philadelphia to speak for him, but 
they arrived just a day too late. Gates having 
been appointed twent^'-four hours previous to 
their coming. 

When Gates reached his army the luck had 
already begun to turn. Burgoyne's outlying 
parties had been destroyed, his Indians and 
Canadians had left him, he had been disap- 
pointed in his hopes of a Tory uprising in his 
favor, and, hampered by his baggage -train, he 
had been brought almost to a stand-still in the 
tangled wilds through which he had slowly 
ploughed his way. Schuyler had done what he 
could to hinder the foe's progress, and had kept 
his own army together as a rallying point for 
the militia, who, having gathered in their har- 
vests, and being inspirited by the outcome of the 
fights at Oriskany and Bennington, flocked in 
by hundreds to the American standard. Gates 
himself did literally nothing ; he rather hin- 
dered his men than otherwise ; and the latter 
were turbulent and prone to disobey orders. 



IN DEPEND EN CE. - 73 

But they were now in fine feather for fight- 
ing, and there were plenty of them. So Gates 
merely sat still, and the levy of backwoods 
farmers, all good individual fighters, and with 
some excellent brigade and regimental com- 
manders, such as Arnold and Morgan, fairly 
mobbed to death the smaller number of dispirited 
and poorly led regulars against whom they were 
pitted. When the latter were at last fought 
out and forced to give in, Gates allowed them 
much better terms than he should have done ; 
and the Continental Congress, to its shame, 
snatched at a technicality, under cover of which 
to break the faith plighted through its general, 
and to avoid fulfilling the conditions to which 
he had so foolishly agreed. 

Morris and Jay, though unable to secure the 
retention of Schuyler, had, nevertheless, by their 
representations while at Philadelphia, prevailed 
on the authorities largely to reinforce the army 
which was about to be put under Gates. Morris 
was very angry at the intrigue by which the 
latter had been given the command ; but what 
he was especially aiming at was the success of 
the cause, not the advancement of his friends. 
Once Gates was appointed he did all in his 
power to strengthen him, and, with his usual 
clear-sightedness, he predicted his ultimate suc- 
cess. 



74 GOUVKRNEUR MORRIS. 

Schuyler was a man of high character and 
public spirit, and he behaved really nobly in 
the midst of his disappointment ; his conduct 
throughout affording a very striking contrast to 
that of McClellan, under somewhat similar cir- 
cumstances in the Civil War. Morris wrote him, 
sympathizing with him, and asking him to sink 
all personal feeling and devote his energies to 
the common weal of the country while out of 
power just as strenuously as he had done when 
in command. Schuyler responded that he 
should continue to serve his country as zeal- 
ously as before, and he made his words good ; 
but Gates was jealous of the better man whose 
downfall he had been the instrument of accom- 
plishing, and declined to profit by his help. 

In a later letter to Schuyler, written Sep- 
tember 18, 1777, Morris praised tlie latter very 
warmly for the way he had behaved, and com- 
mented roughly on Gates' littleness of spirit. 
He considered that with such a commander 
there was nothing to be hoped for from skillful 
management, and that Burgoyne would have to 
be simply tired out. Alluding to a rumor that 
the Indians were about to take up the hatchet 
for us, he wrote, in the humorous vein he 
adopted so often in dealing even with the most 
pressing matters : " If this be true, it would be 
infinitely better to wear away the enemy's army 



INDEPENDENCE. 75 

by a scrupulous and polite attention, than to 

violate the rules of decorum and the laws of 

hospitality by making an attack upon strangers 

in our own country ! " He gave Schuyler the 

news of Washington's defeat at the battle of 

Brandywine, and foretold the probable loss of 

Philadelphia and a consequent winter campaign. 

I In ending he gave a thoroughly characteris- 

' tic sketch of the occupations of himself and his 

I colleagues. " The chief justice (Jay) is gone 

to fetch his wife. The chancellor (Livingston) 

is solacing himself with his wife, his farm, and 

his imagination. Our senate is doing, I know 

not what. In assembly we wrangle long to 

j little purpose. . . . We have some principles 

of fermentation which must, if it be possible, 

I evaporate before business is entered upon." 



CHAPTER IV. 

IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGKESS. 

At the end of 1777, while still but twenty- 
five years old, Morris was elected to the Con- 
tinental Congress, . and took his seat in that 
body at Yorktown in the following January. 

He was immediately appointed as one of a 
committee of five members to go to Washing- 
ton's headquarters at Valley Forge and ex- 
amine into the condition of the continental 
troops. 

The dreadful suffering of the American army 
in this winter camp was such that its memory 
has literally eaten its way into the hearts of 
our people, and it comes before our minds with 
a vividness that dims the remembrance of any 
other disaster. Washington's gaunt, half- 
starved continentals, shoeless and ragged, shiv- 
ered in their crazy huts, worn out by want 
and illness, and by the bitter cold ; while the 
members of the Continental Congress not only 
failed to support them in the present, but 
even grudged them the poor gift of a promise 



IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, 77 

of half-pay in the future. Some of the del- 
egates, headed by Samuel Adams, were actu- 
ally caballing against the great chief himself, 
the one hope of America. Meanwhile the 
States looked askance at each other, and each 
sunk into supine indifference when its own 
borders were for the moment left unthreatened 
by the foe. Throughout the Revolutionary 
War our people hardly once pulled with a will 
together ; although almost every locality in 
turn, on some one occasion, varied its lethargy 
by a spasm of terrible energy. Yet, again, it 
must be remembered that we were never more 
to be dreaded than when our last hope seemed 
gone ; and if the people were unwilling to 
show the wisdom and self-sacrifice that would 
have insured success, they were equally deter- 
mined under no circumstances whatever to ac- 
knowledge final defeat. 

To Jay, with whom he was always intimate, 
Morris wrote in strong terms from Valley 
Forge, painting things as they were, but with- 
out a shadow of doubt or distrust ; for he by 
this time saw clearly enough that in American 
warfare the darkest hour was often followed 
close indeed by dawn. " The skeleton of an 
army presents itself to our eyes in a naked, 
starving condition, out of health, out of spirits. 
But I have seen Fort George in 1777." The 



78 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

last sentence refers to what he saw of Schuy- 
ler's forces, when affairs in New York State 
were at the blackest, just before the tide be- 
gan to turn against Burgoyne. He then went 
on to beseech Jay to exert himself to the ut- 
most on the great question of taxation, the 
most vital of all. Morris himself was so good a 
financier that revolutionary financial economics 
drove him ahnost wild. The Continental Con- 
gress, of which he had just become a member, 
he did not esteem very highl}^, and dismissed 
it, as well as the currency, as having " both 
depreciated." The State of Pennsylvania, he 
remarked, was " sick unto death ; " and added 
that '' Sir William [the British general] would 
prove a most damnable physician." 

Most wisely, in examining and reporting, he 
paid heed almost exclusively to Washington's 
recommendations, and the plan he and his 
colleagues produced was little more than an 
enlargement of the general's suggestions as 
to filling out the regiments, regulating rank, 
modeling the various departments, etc. In fact, 
Morris now devoted himself to securing the ap- 
proval of Congress for Washington's various 
plans. 

In urging one of the most important of these 
he encountered very determined opposition. 
Washington was particularly desirous of secur- 



IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 79 

ing a permanent provision for the officers by 
the establishment of a system of half-pay, stat- 
ing that without some such arrangement he 
saw no hope whatever for the salvation of the 
cause ; for as things then were the officers were 
leaving day by day ; and of those who went 
home on furlough to the Eastern and Southern 
States, many, instead of returning, went into 
some lucrative employment. This fact, by 
the way, while showing the difficulties with 
which Washington had to deal, and therefore 
his greatness, since he successfully dealt with 
them, at the same time puts the officers of the 
Revolution in no very favorable light as com- 
pared with their descendants at the time of 
the great rebellion ; and the Continental Con- 
gress makes a still worse showing. 

When Morris tried to push through a 
measure providing for half-pay for life he was 
fought, tooth and nail, by many of his col- 
leagues, including, to their lasting discredit be 
it said, every delegate from New England. 
The folly of these ultra-democratic delegates 
almost passes belief. They seemed incapable 
of learning how the fight for liberty should be 
made. Their leaders, like Samuel Adams and 
John Hancock, did admirable service in excit- 
ing the Americans to make the struggle ; but 
once it was begun, their function ended, and 



80 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

from thence onward tliey hampered almost as 
much as they helped the patriot cause. New 
England, too, had passed through the period 
when its patriotic fervor was at white heat. It 
still remained as resolute as ever ; and if the 
danger had been once more brought home to 
its very door-sill, then it would have risen 
again as it had risen before ; but without the 
spur of an immediate necessity it moved but 
sluggishly. 

The New Englanders were joined by the 
South Carolina delegates. Morris was backed 
by the members from New York, Virginia, and 
the other States, and he won the victory, but 
not without being obliged to accept amend- 
ments that took away some of the good of the 
measure. Half-pay was granted, but it was only 
to last for seven years after the close of the 
war ; and the paltry bounty of eighty dollars 
was to be given to every soldier who served out 
his time to the end. 

At the same period Morris was engaged on 
numerous other committees, dealing chiefly 
with the finances, or with the remedy of abuses 
that had crept into the administration of the 
army. In one of his reports he exposed 
thoroughly the frightful waste in the purchase 
and distribution of supplies, and, what was 
much worse, the accompanying frauds. These 



IN TEE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 81 

frauds had become a most serious evil ; Jay, in 
one of his letters to Morris, had already ur- 
gently requested him to turn his attention es- 
pecially to stopping the officers, in particular 
those of the staff, from themselves engaging in 
trade, on account of the jobbing and swindling 
that it produced. The shoddy contractors of 
the Civil War had plenty of predecessors in the 
Revolution. 

When these events occurred, in the spring of 
1778, it was already three years after the fight 
at Lexington ; certainly, the continental armies 
of that time do not compare favorably, even 
taking all difficulties into account, with the 
Confederate forces which, in 1864, three years 
after the fall of Sumter, fronted Grant and 
Sherman. The men of the Revolution failed 
to show the capacity to organize for fighting 
purposes, and the ability to bend all energies 
towards the attainment of a given end, which 
their great-grandsons of the Civil War, both at 
the North and the South, possessed. Yet, after 
all, their very follies sprang from their virtues, 
from their inborn love of freedom, and their 
impatience of the control of outsiders. So 
fierce had they been in their opposition to the 
rule of foreigners that they were now hardly 
willing to submit to being ruled by them- 
selves; they had seen power so abused that 



82 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

they feared its ver}^ use ; they were anxious to 
assert their independence of all mankind, even 
of each other. Stubborn, honest, and fearless, 
they were taught with difficulty, and only by 
the grinding logic of an imperious necessity, 
that it was no surrender of their freedom to 
submit to rulers chosen by themselves, through 
whom alone that freedom could be won. They 
had not y^t learned that right could be en- 
forced only by might, that union was to the 
full as important as liberty, because it was the 
prerequisite condition for the establishment 
and preservation of liberty. 

But if the Americans of the Revolution were 
not perfect, how their faults dwindle when we 
stand them side by side with their European 
compeers ! What European nation then brought 
forth rulers as wise and pure as our statesmen, 
or masses as free and self-respecting as our 
people ? There was far more swindling, jobbing, 
cheating, and stealing in the English army than 
in ours ; the British king and his ministers 
need no criticism ; and the outcome of the war 
proves that their nation as a whole was less 
resolute than our own. As for the other Euro- 
pean powers, the faults of our leaders sink out 
of sight when matched against the ferocious 
frivolity of the French noblesse, or the ignoble, 
sordid, bloody baseness of those swinish German 



IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 83 

kinglets who let out their subjects to do hired 
murder, and battened on the blood and sweat 
of the wretched beings under them, until the 
whirlwind of the French Revolution swept 
their carcasses from off the world they cum- 
bered. 

We must needs give all honor to the men 
who founded our Commonwealth ; only in so 
doing let us remember that they brought into 
being a government under which their children 
were to grow better and not worse. 

Washington at once recognized in Morris a 
man whom he could trust in every way, and 
on whose help he could rely in other matters 
besides getting his officers half -pay. The 
young New Yorker was one of the great Vir- 
ginian's warmest supporters in Congress, and 
took the lead in championing his cause at every 
turn. He was the leader in putting down 
intrigues like that of the French-Irish adven- 
turer Conway, his ready tongue and knowl- 
edge of parliamentary tactics, no less than his 
ability, rendering him the especial dread and 
dislike of the anti-Washington faction. 

Washington wrote to Morris very freely, and 
in one of his letters complained of the conduct 
of some of the officers who wished to resign 
when affairs looked dark and to be reinstated 



84 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

as soon as they brightened a little. Morris 
replied with one of his bright caustic letters, 
sparing his associates very little, their pom- 
pous tediousness and hesitation being peculiarly 
galling to a man so far-seeing and so prompt to 
make up his mind. He wrote : " We are going 
on with the regimental arrangements as fast as 
possible, and I think the day begins to appear 
with respect to that business. Had our Saviour 
addressed a chapter to the rulers of mankind, 
as he did many to the subjects, I am persuaded 
his good sense would have dictated this text : 
Be not ivise overmuch. Had the several mem- 
bers who compose our multifarious body been 
only wise enough^ our business would long since 
have been completed. But our superior abili- 
ties, or the desire of appearing to possess them, 
lead us to such exquisite tediousness of debate 
that the most precious moments pass unheeded 
away. . . . As to what you mention of the 
extraordinary demeanor of some gentlemen, I 
cannot but agree with j^ou that such conduct 
is not the most honorable. But, on the other 
hand, you must allow that it is the most ^q/c, 
and certainly you are not to learn that, how- 
ever ignorant of that bappy art in your own 
person, the bulk of us bipeds know well how 
to balance solid pudding against empty praise. 
There are other things, my dear sir, beside 
virtue, which are their own reward.^'' 



IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 85 

Washington chose Morris as his confidential 
friend and agent to bring privately before Con- 
gress a matter in reference to which he did not 
consider it politic to write publicly. He was 
at that time annoyed beyond measure by the 
shoals of foreign officers who were seeking em- 
ployment in the army, and he wished Congress 
to stop giving them admission to the service. 
These foreign officers were sometimes honorable 
men, but more often adventurers ; with two or 
three striking exceptions they failed to do as 
well as officers of native birth ; and, as later in 
the Civil War, so in the Revolution, it appeared 
that Americans could be best commanded by 
Americans. Washington had the greatest dis- 
like for these adventurers, stigmatizing them 
as " men who in the first instance tell you that 
they wish for nothing more than the honor of 
serving in so glorious a cause as volunteers, the 
next day solicit rank without pay, the day fol- 
lowing want money advanced to them, and in 
the course of a week want further promotion, 
and are not satisfied with anything you can 
do for them." He ended by writing : " I do 
most devoutly wish that we had not a single 
foreigner among us, except the Marquis de 
Lafayette, who acts upon very different princi- 
ples from those which govern the rest." To 
Lafayette, indeed, America owes as much as to 



86 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

any of her own children, for his devotion to us 
was as disinterested and sincere as it was effec- 
tive ; and it is a pleasant thing to remember 
that we, in our turn, not only repaid him 
materially, but, what he valued far more, that 
our whole people yielded him all his life long 
the most loving homage a man could receive. 
No man ever kept pleasanter relations with a 
people he had helped than Lafayette did with 
us. 

Morris replied to Washington that he would 
do all in his power to aid him. Meanwhile he 
had also contracted a very warm friendship for 
Greene, then newly appointed quartermaster 
general of the army, and proved a most useful 
ally, both in and out of Congress, in helping 
the general to get his department in good run- 
ning order, and in extricating it from the 
frightful confusion in which it had previously 
been plunged. 

He also specially devoted himself at this time 
to an investigation of the finances, which were 
in a dreadful condition ; and by the ability with 
which he performed his very varied duties he 
acquired such prominence that he was given 
the chairmanship of the most important of all 
the congressional committees. This was the 
committee to which was confided the task of 
conferring with the British commissioners, who 



IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 87 

had been sent over, in the spring of 1778, to 
treat with the Americans, in accordance with 
the terms of what were known as Lord North's 
conciliatory bills. These bills were two in 
number, the first giving up the right of taxa- 
tion, about which the quarrel had originally 
arisen, and the second authorizing the commis- 
sioners to treat with the revolted colonies on all 
questions in dispute. They were introduced in 
Parliament on account of the little headway 
made by the British in subduing their former 
subjects, and were pressed hastily through be- 
cause of the fear of an American alliance with 
France, which was then, indeed, ahnost con- 
cluded. 

Three years before, these bills would have 
achieved their end ; but now they came by just 
that much time too late. The embittered war- 
fare had lasted long enough entirely to destroy 
the old friendly feelings ; and the Americans 
having once tasted the " perilous pleasure " of 
freedom, having once stretched out their arms 
and stood before the world's eyes as their own 
masters, it was certain that they would never 
forego their liberty, no matter with what 
danger it was fraught, no matter how light the 
yoke, or how kindly the bondage, by which it 
was to be replaced. 

Two days after the bills were received, Morris 



88 GOVVERNEUR MORRIS, 

drew up and presented his report, which was 
unanimously adopted by Congress. Its tenor 
can be gathered from its summing up, which 
declared that the indispensable preliminaries to 
any treaty would have to be the withdrawal of 
all the British fleets and armies, and the ac- 
knowledgment of the independence of the 
United States ; and it closed by calling on the 
several States to furnish without delay their 
quotas of troops for the coming campaign. 

This decisive stand was taken when America 
was still without allies in the contest ; but ten 
days afterwards messengers came to Congress, 
bearing copies of the treaty with France. It 
was ratified forthwith, and again Morris was 
appointed chairman of a committee, this time 
to issue an address on the subject to the Amer- 
ican people at large. He penned this address 
himself, explaining fully the character of the 
crisis, and going briefly over the events that 
had led to it ; and shortly afterwards he drew 
up, on behalf of Congress, a sketch of all the 
proceedings in reference to the British commis- 
sioners, under the title of " Observations on the 
American Revolution," giving therein a mas- 
terly outline not only of the doings of Congress 
in the particular matter under consideration, 
but also an account of the causes of tlie war, 
of the efforts of the Americans to maintain 



IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 89 

peace, and of the chief events that had taken 
place, as well as a comparison between the con- 
trasting motives and aims of the contestants. 

Morris was one of the committee appointed 
to receive the French minister, M. Gerard. 
Immediately afterwards he was also selected by- 
Congress to draft the instructions which were 
to be sent to Franklin, the American minister 
at the court of Versailles. As a token of the 
closeness of our relations with France, he was 
requested to show these instructions to M. 
Gerard, which he accordingly did ; and some 
interesting features of the conversation between 
the two men have been preserved for us in the 
despatches of Gerard to the French court. 
The Americans were always anxious to un- 
dertake the conquest of Cfinada, although 
Washington did not believe the scheme feas- 
ible ; and the French strongly, although se- 
cretly, opposed it, as it was their policy from 
the beginning that Canada should remain Eng- 
lish. Naturally the French did not wish to see 
America transformed into a conquering power, 
a menace to themselves and to the Spaniards 
as well as to the English ; nor can they be 
criticised for feeling in this way, or taunted 
with acting only from motives of self-interest. 
It is doubtless true that their purposes in going 
into the war were mixed ; they unquestionably 



90 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

wished to benefit themselves, and to hurt 
their old and successful rival ; but it is equally 
unquestionable that they were also moved by 
a generous spirit of sympathy and admiration 
for the struggling colonists. It would, how- 
ever, have been folly to let this sympathy blind 
them to the consequences that might ensue to all 
Europeans having possessions in America, if the 
Americans should become not only independent, 
but also aggressive ; and it was too much to 
expect them to be so far-sighted as to see that, 
once independent, it was against the very na- 
ture of things that the Americans should not 
be aggressive, and impossible that they should 
be aught but powerful and positive instru- 
ments, both in their own persons and by their 
example, in freeing the whole western continent 
from European control. 

Accordingly M. Gerard endeavored, though 
without success, to prevail on Morris not to 
mention the question of an invasion of Canada 
in the instructions to Franklin. He also 
warned the American of the danger of alarm- 
ing Spain by manifesting a wish to encroach 
on its territory in the Mississippi valley, men- 
tioning and condemning the attitude taken by 
several members of Congress to the effect that 
the navigation of the Mississippi should belong 
equally to the English and Americans. 



IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 91 

Morris's reply showed liow little even the 
most intelligent American of that time — 
especially if he came from the Northern or 
Eastern States — could appreciate the destiny 
of his country. He stated that his colleagues 
favored restricting the growth of our country 
to the south and west, and believed that the 
navigation of the Mississippi, from the Ohio 
down, should belong exclusively to the Span- 
iards, as otherwise the western settlements 
springing up in the valley of the Ohio, and on 
the shores of the Great Lakes, would not only 
domineer over Spain, but also over the United 
States, and would certainly render themselves 
independent in the end. He further said that 
some at least of those who were anxious to 
secure the navigation of the Mississippi, were 
so from interested motives, having money ven- 
tures in the establishments along the river. 
However, if he at this time failed fully to grasp 
his country's future, he was later on one of the 
first in the Northern States to recognize it ; 
and once he did see it he promptly changed, 
and became the strongest advocate of our ter- 
ritorial expansion. 

Accompanying his instructions to Franklin, 
Morris sent a pamphlet entitled " Observa- 
tions on the Finances of America," to be laid 
before the French ministry. Practically, all 



92 GOVVERNEUR MORRIS. 

that the pamphlet amounted to was a most 
urgent begging letter, showing that our own 
people could not, or would not, either pay 
taxes, or take up a domestic loan, so that we 
stood in dire need of a subsidy from abroad. 
The drawing up of such a document could 
hardly have been satisfactory employment for 
a high spirited man who wished to be proud of 
his country. 

All through our negotiations with France 
and England Morris's views coincided with 
those of Washington, Hamilton, Jay, and the 
others who afterwards became leaders of the 
Federalist party. Their opinions were well 
expressed by Jay in a letter to Morris written 
about this time, which ran : " I view a return 
to the domination of Britain with horror, and 
would risk all for independence ; but that point 
ceded, . . . the destruction of Old England 
would hurt me ; I wish it well ; it afforded my 
ancestors an asylum from persecution." The 
rabid American adherents of France could not 
understand such sentiments, and the more mean 
spirited among them always tried to injure 
Morris on account of his lo^^'ilist relatives, al- 
though so many families were divided in this 
same way, Franklin's only son being himself 
a prominent Tory. So bitter was this feeling 
that when, later on, Morris's mother, who was 



IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 93 

within tlie British lines, became very ill, he 
actually had to give up his intended visit to 
her, because of the furious clamor that was 
raised against it. He refers bitterly, in one of 
his letters to Jay, to the " malevolence of in- 
dividuals," as something he had to expect, but 
which he announced that he would conquer by 
so living as to command the respect of those 
whose respect was worth having. 

When, however, his foes were of suflScient 
importance to warrant his paying attention to 
them individually, Morris proved abundantly 
able to take care of himself, and to deal heav- 
ier blows than he received. This was shown in 
the controversy which convulsed Congress over 
the conduct of Silas Deane, the original Ameri- 
can envoy to France. Deane did not behave 
very well, but at first he was certainly much 
more sinned against than sinning, and Morris 
took up his cause warmly. Thomas Paine, the 
famous author of "Common Sense," who was 
secretary of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, 
attacked Deane and his defenders, as well as 
the court of France, with peculiar venom, using 
as weapons the secrets he became acquainted 
with through his official position, and which he 
was in honor bound not to divulge. For this 
Morris had him removed from his secretary- 
ship, and in the debate handled him extremely 



94 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

roughl}^, characterizing him with contemptuous 
severity as "a mere adventurer from Enghmd 
. . . ignorant even of grammar," and ridiculing 
his pretensions to importance. Paine was an 
adept in the art of invective ; but he came out 
second best in this encounter, and never forgot 
or forgave his antagonist. 

As a rule, however, Morris was kept too 
busily at work to spare time for altercations. 
He was chairman of three important standing 
committees, those on the commissary, quarter- 
master's, and medical departments, and did the 
whole business for each. He also had more 
than his share of special committee work, be- 
sides playing his full part in the debates and 
consultations of the Congress itself. Moreover, 
his salary was so small that he had to eke it 
out by the occasional practice of his profession. 
He devoted himself especially to the consider- 
ation of our finances and of our foreign rela- 
tions; and, as he grew constantly to possess 
more and more weight and influence in Con- 
gress, he was appointed, early in 1779, as chair- 
man of a very important committee, which was 
to receive communications from our ministers 
abroad, as well as from the French envoy. He 
drew out its report, together with the draft of 
instructions to our foreign ministers, which it 
recommended. Congress accepted the first, and 



IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 95 

adopted the last, without change, whereby it 
became the basis of the treaty by which we 
finally won peace. In his draft he had been 
careful not to bind down our representatives on 
minor points, and to leave them as large lib- 
erty of action as was possible ; but the main 
issues, such as the boundaries, the navigation 
of the Mississippi, and the fisheries, were dis- 
cussed at length and in order. 

At the time this draft of instructions for a 
treaty was sent out there was much demand 
among certain members in Congress that we 
should do all in our power to make foreign 
alliances, and to procure recognitions of our in- 
dependence in every possible quarter. To this 
Morris was heartily opposed, deeming that this 
*'rage for treaties," as he called it, was not 
very dignified on our part. He held rightly that 
our true course was to go our own gait, without 
seeking outside favor, until we had shown our- 
selves able to keep our own place among nations, 
when the recognitions would come without ask- 
ing. Whether European nations recognized us 
as a free people, or not, was of little moment so 
long as we ourselves knew that we had become 
one in law and in fact, through the right of 
battle and the final arbitrament of the sword. 

Besides these questions of national policy, 
Morris also had to deal with an irritating 



96 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

* 

matter affecting mainly New York. This was 
the dispute of that state with the people of Ver- 
mont, who wished to form a separate common- 
wealth of their own, while New York claimed 
that their lands came within its borders. Even 
the fear of their common foe, the British, 
against whom they needed to employ their 
utmost strength, was barely sufficient to pre- 
vent the two communities from indulging in a 
small civil war of their own ; and they persisted 
in piessing their rival claims upon the attention 
of Congress, and clamoring for a decision from 
that harassed and overburdened body. Clinton, 
who was much more of a politician than a states- 
man, led the popular party in this foolish busi- 
ness, the majority of the New Yorkers being 
apparently nearly as enthusiastic in asserting 
their sovereignty over Vermont as they were in 
declaring their independence of Britain. Morris, 
however, w^as very half-hearted in pushing the 
affair before Congress. He doubted if Congress 
had the power, and he knew it lacked the will, 
to move in the matter at all ; and besides he 
did not S3anpathize with the position taken by 
his State. He was wise enough to see that the 
Vermonters -had much of the riglit on their side 
in addition to the great fact of possession ; and 
that New York would be probably unable to 
employ force enough to conquer them. Clinton 



IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 97 

was a true type of the separatist or states-rights 
politician of that day : he cared little how the 
national weal was affected by the quarrel ; and 
he was far more anxious to bluster than to fight 
over the matter, to which end he kept besieging 
the delegates in Congress with useless petitions. 
In a letter to him Morris put the case with his 
usual plainness, telling him that it was perfectly 
idle to keep worrying Congress to take action, 
for it would certainly not do so, and if it did 
render a decision, the Vermonters would no 
more respect it than they would the Pope's 
Bull. He went on to show his characteristic 
contempt for half -measures, and capacity for 
striking straight at the root of things: "Either 
let these people alone, or conquer them. I pre- 
fer the latter ; but I doubt the means. If we 
have the means let them be used, and let Con- 
gress deliberate and decide, or deliberate with- 
out deciding, — it is of no consequence. Success 
will sanctify every operation. ... If we have 
not the means of conquering these people we 
must let them alone. We must continue our 
impotent threats, or we must make a treaty. 
... If we continue our threats they will either 
hate or despise us, and perhaps both. . . . On 
the whole, then, my conclusion is here, as on 
most other human affairs, act decisively, fight 
or submit — conquer or treat." Morris was 



98 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

right ; the treaty was finally made, and Vermont 
became an independent State. 

But the small politicians of New York would 
not forgive him for the wisdom and the broad 
feeling of nationality he showed on this and so 
many other questions ; and they defeated him 
when he was a candidate for reelection to Con- 
gress at the end of 1779. The charge they 
urged against him was that he devoted his time 
wholly to the service of the nation at large, and 
not to that of New York in particular ; his very 
devotion to the public business, which had kept 
him from returning to the State, being brought 
forward to harm him. Arguments of this kind 
are common enough even at the present day, 
and effective too, among that numerous class 
of men with narrow minds and selfish hearts. 
Many an able and upright Congressman since 
Morris has been sacrificed because his constit- 
uents found he was fitted to do the exact work 
needed ; because he showed himself capable of 
serving the whole nation, and did not devote 
his time to advancing the interests of only a 
portion thereof. 



CHAPTER V. 

FINANCES : THE TREATY OF PEACE. 

At the end of 1779 Morris was thus retired 
to private life ; and, haying by this time made 
many friends in Philadelphia, he took up his 
abode in that city. His leaving Congress wsls 
small loss to himself, as that body was rapidly 
sinking into a condition of windy decrepitude. 

He at once began working at his profession, 
and also threw himself with ea^rer zest into 
every attainable form of gayety and amusement, 
for he was of a most pleasure-loving tempera- 
ment, very fond of society, and a great favorite 
in the little American world of wit and fashion. 
But although in private life, he nevertheless 
kept his grip on public affairs, and devoted 
himself to the finances, which were in a most 
wretched state. He could not keep out of pub- 
lic life ; he probably agreed with Jay, who, on 
hearing that he was again a private citizen, 
wrote him to "remember that Achilles made 
no figure at the spinning-wheel." At any rate, 
as early as February, 1780, he came to the 



100 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

front once more as the author of a series of 
essays on the finances. They were published 
in Philadelphia, and attracted the attention of 
all thinking men by their soundness. In fact 
it was in our monetary affairs that the ke}' to 
the situation was to be found; for, had we been 
willing to pay honestly and promptly the neces- 
sary war expenses, we should have ended the 
struggle in short order. But the niggardliness 
as well as the real poverty, of the people, the 
jealousies of the states, kept aflame by the 
states-rights leaders for their own selfish pur- 
poses, and the foolish ideas of most of the con- 
gressional delegates on all money matters, com- 
bined to keep our treasury in a pitiable con- 
dition. 

Morris tried to show the people at large the 
advantage of submitting to reasonable taxation, 
while at the same time combating some of the 
theories entertained as well by themselves as by 
their congressional representatives. He began 
by discussing Avith great clearness what money 
really is, how far coin can be replaced by paper, 
the interdependence of money and credit, and 
other elementary points in reference to which 
most of his fellow -citizens seemed to possess 
wonderfully mixed ideas. He attacked the ef- 
forts of Congress to make their currency legal 
tender ; and then showed the utter futility of 



FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 101 

one of the pet schemes of revolutionary financial 
wisdom, the regulation of prices by law. Hard 
times, then as now, always produced not only a 
large debtor class, but also a corresponding num- 
ber of political demagogues who truckled to 
it ; and both demagogue and debtor, when they 
clamored for laws which should " relieve " the 
latter, meant thereby laws which would enable 
him to swindle his creditor. The people, more- 
over, liked to lay the blame for their misfortunes 
neither on fate nor on themselves, but on some 
unfortunate outsider ; and they were especially 
apt to attack as " monopolists " the men who 
had purchased necessary supplies in large quan- 
tities to profit by their rise in price. Accord- 
ingly they passed laws against them ; and Mor- 
ris showed in his essays the unwisdom of such 
legislation, while not defending for a moment 
the men who looked on the misfortunes of their 
country solely as offering a field for their own 
harvesting. 

He ended by drawing out an excellent scheme 
of taxation ; but, unfortunatel}^ the people 
were too short-sighted to submit to any measure 
of the sort, no matter how wise and necessary. 
One of the pleas he made for his scheme was, 
that something of the sort would be absolutely 
necessary for the preservation of the Federal 
Union, " which," he wrote, '' in my poor opin- 



102 GOVVERNEUR MORRIS. 

ion, will greatly depend upon the management 
of the revenue." He showed with his usual 
clearness the need of obtaining, for financial as 
well as for all other reasons, a firmer union, as 
the existing confederation bade fair to become, 
as its enemies had prophesied, a rope of sand. 
He also foretold graphically the misery that 
would ensue — and that actually did ensue — 
when the pressure from a foreign foe should 
cease, and the states should be resolved into a 
disorderly league of petty, squabbling commu- 
nities. In ending he remarked bitterly : " The 
articles of confederation were formed when the 
attachment to Congress was warm and great. 
The framers of them, therefore, seem to have 
been only solicitous how to provide against the 
power of that body, which, by means of their 
foresight and care, now exists by mere courtesy 
and sufferance." 

Although Morris was not able to convert 
Congress to the ways of sound thinking, his 
ability and clearness impressed themselves on 
all the best men ; notably on Robert Morris, — 
who was no relation of his, by the way, — the 
first in the line of American statesmen who have 
been great in finance; a man whose services to 
our treasury stand on a par, if not with those 
of Hamilton, at least with those of Gallatin 
and John Sherman. Congress had just estab- 



FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 103 

lished four departments, with secretaries at the 
head of each. The two most important were 
the Departments of Foreign Affairs and of 
Finance. Livingstone was given the former, 
while Robert Morris received the latter; and 
immediately afterwards appointed Goiiverneur 
Morris as Assistant Financier, at a salary of 
eighteen hundred and fifty dollars a year. 

Morris accepted this appointment, and re- 
mained in office for three years and a half, until 
the beginning of 1785. He threw himself 
heart and soul into the work, helping his chief 
in every way ; and in particular giving him 
invaluable assistance in the establishment of 
the " Bank of North America," which Congress 
was persuaded to incorporate, — an institution 
which was the first of its kind in the country. 
It was of wonderful effect in restoring the 
public credit, and was absolutely invaluable in 
the financial operations undertaken by the 
secretary. 

When, early in 1782, the secretary was di- 
rected by Congress, to present to that body a 
report on the foreign coins circulating in the 
country, it was prepared and sent in by Gou- 
verneur Morris, and he accompanied it with a 
plan for an American coinage. The postscript 
was the really important part of the document, 
and the plan therein set forth was made the 



104 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

basis of our present coinage system, altliough 
not until several years later, and then only with 
important modifications, suggested, for the most 
part, by Jefferson. 

Although his plan was modified, it still 
remains true that Gouverneur Morris was the 
founder of our national coinage. He intro- 
duced the system of decimal notation, invented 
the word "cent" to express one of the smaller 
coins, and nationalized the already familiar 
word " dollar." His plan, however, was a little 
too abstruse for the common mind, the unit 
being made so small that a large sum would 
have had to be expressed in a very great num- 
ber of figures, and there being five or six dif- 
ferent kinds of new coins, some of them not 
simple multiples of each other. Afterwards he 
proposed as a modification a system of pounds, 
or dollars, and doits, the doit answering to our 
present mill, while providing also an ingenious 
arrangement by which the money of account 
was to differ from the money of coinage. Jef- 
ferson changed the system by grafting on it the 
dollar as a unit, and simplifying it ; and Ham- 
ilton perfected it further. 

To understand the advantage, as well as the 
boldness, of Morris's scheme, we must keep in 
mind the horrible condition of our currency at 
that time. We had no proper coins of our 



FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 105 

own ; nothing but hopelessly depreciated paper 
bills, a mass of copper, and some clipped and 
counterfeited gold and silver coin from the 
mints of England, France, Spain, and even 
Germany. Dollars, pounds, shillings, doubloons, 
ducats, moidores, joes, crowns, pistareens, cop- 
pers, and sous, circulated indifferently, and with 
various values in each colony. A dollar was 
worth six shillings in Massachusetts, eight in 
New York, seven and sixpence in Pennsylvania, 
six again in Virginia, eight again in North 
Carolina, thirty-two and a half in South Caro- 
lina, and five in Georgia. The government it- 
self had to resort to clipping in one of its most 
desperate straits ; and at last people would only 
take payment by weight of gold or silver. 

Morris, in his report, dwelt especially on 
three points : first, that the new money should 
be easily intelligible to the multitude, and 
should, therefore, bear a close relation to the 
coins already existing, as otherwise its sudden 
introduction would bring business to a stand- 
still, and would excite distrust and suspicion 
everywhere, particularly among the poorest and 
most ignorant, the day-laborers, the farm ser- 
vants, and the hired help. Second, that its low- 
est divisible sum, or unit, should be very small, 
so that the price and the value of little things 
could be made proportionate ; and third, that 



106 aOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

as far as possible the money should increase 
in decimal ratio. The Spanish dollar was the 
coin most widely circulated, while retaining 
everywhere about the same value. Accordingly 
he took this, and then sought for a unit that 
would go evenly into it, as well as into the va- 
rious shillings, disregarding the hopelessly aber- 
rant shilling of South Carolina. Such a unit 
was a quarter of a grain of pure silver, equal to 
the one fourteen hundred and fortieth part of a 
dollar; it was not, of course, necessary to have 
it exactly represented in coin. On the con- 
trary, he proposed to strike two copper pieces, 
respectively of five and eight units, to be known 
as fives and eights. Two eights would then 
make a penny in Pennsylvania, and three eights 
one in Georgia, while three fuves would make one 
in New York, and four would make one in Mas- 
sachusetts. Morris's great aim was, while estab- 
lishing uniform coins for the entire Union, to 
get rid of the fractional remainders in translat- 
ing the old currencies into the new ; and in ad- 
dition his reckoning adapted itself to the dif- 
ferent systems in the different states, as well 
as to the different coins in use. But he in- 
troduced an entirely new system of coinage, 
and moreover used therein the names of several 
old coins while giving them new values. His 
originally proposed table of currency was as 
follows : — 



10,000 units. 


1,000 


ii 


100 


K 


10 


a 


1 


ii 



FINANCES: THE TEE AT Y OF PEACE. 107 

One crown = ten dollars, or . 
One dollar = ten bills, or . . 
One bill ^==: ten pence, or . . 
One penny == ten quarters, or 
One quarter = 

But he proposed that for convenience other 
coins should be struck, like the copper ^ye and 
eight above spoken of, and he afterwards altered 
his names. He then called the bill of one hun- 
dred units a cent^ making it consist of twenty- 
five grains of silver and two of copper, being 
thus the lowest silver coin. Five cents were to 
make a quint ^ and ten a mark. 

Congress, according to its custom, received 
the report, applauded it, and did nothing in the 
matter. Shortly afterwards, however, Jefferson 
took it up, when the whole subject was referred 
to a committee of which he was a member. He 
highly approved of Morris's plan, and took from 
it the idea of a decimal system, and the use of 
the words "dollar" and " cent." But he consid- 
ered Morris's unit too small, and preferred to 
take as his own the Spanish dollar, which was 
already known to all the people, its value being 
uniform and well understood. Then, by keep- 
ing strictly to the decimal sj^stem, and dividing 
the dollar into one hundred parts, he got cents 
for our fractional currency. He thus introduced 
a simpler system than that of Morris, with an 



108 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

existing and well -understood unit, instead of 
an imaginary one that would have to be, for 
the first time, brought to the knowledge of the 
people, and which might be adopted only with 
reluctance. On the other hand, Jefferson's 
system failed entirely to provide for the ex- 
tension of the old currencies in the terms of 
the new without the use of fractions. On this 
account Morris vehemently opposed it, but it 
was nevertheless adopted. He foretold, what 
actually came to pass, that the people would be 
very reluctant to throw away their local moneys 
in order to take up a general money which bore 
no special relation to them. For half a century 
afterwards the people clung to their absurd 
shillings and sixpences, the government itself, 
in its post-office transactions, being obliged to 
recognize the obsolete terms in vogue in certain 
localities. Some curious pieces circulated freely 
up to the time of the Civil War. Still, Jeffer- 
son's plan worked admirably in the end. 

All the time he was working so hard at the 
finances, Morris nevertheless continued to enjoy 
himself to the full in the society of Philadel- 
phia. Imperious, light-hearted, good-looking, 
well-dressed, he ranked as a wit among men, as 
a beau among women. He was equally sought 
for dances and dinners. He was a fine scholar 
and a polished gentleman ; a capital story- 



FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 109 

teller; and Lad just a touch of erratic levity 
that served to render him still more charming. 
Occasionally he showed whimsical peculiarities, 
usually about very small things, that brought 
him into trouble ; and one such freak cost him 
a serious injury. In his capacity of young man 
of fashion, he used to drive about town in a 
phaeton with a pair of small, spirited horses ; 
and because of some whim, he would not allow 
the groom to stand at their heads. So one 
day they took fright, ran, threw him out, and 
broke his leg. The leg had to be amputated, 
and he was ever afterwards forced to wear a 
wooden one. However, he took his loss with 
most philosophic cheerfulness, and even bore 
with equanimity the condolences of those ex- 
asperating individuals, of a species by no means 
peculiar to revolutionary times, who endeav- 
ored to prove to him the manifest falsehood 
that such an accident was " all for the best." 
To one of these dreary gentlemen he responded, 
with disconcerting vivacity, that his visitor had 
so handsomely argued the advantage of being 
entirely legless as to make him almost tempted 
to part with his remaining limb ; and to an- 
other he announced that at least there was the 
compensation that he would be a steadier man 
with one leg than with two. Wild accounts 
of the accident got about, which rather irri- 



110 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

tated him, and in answer to a letter from Jay 
he wrote : " I suppose it was Deane who wrote 
to you from France about the loss of my leg. 
His account is facetious. Let it pass. The 
leg is gone, and there is an end of the mat- 
ter." His being crippled did not prevent him 
from going about in society very nearly as 
much as ever ; and society in Philadelphia was 
at the moment gayer than in any other Ameri- 
can city. Indeed Jay, a man of Puritanic mo- 
rality, wrote to Morris somewhat gloomily to 
inquire about " the rapid progress of luxury at 
Philadelphia ; " to which his younger friend, 
who highly appreciated the good things of life, 
replied light-heartedly; "With respect to our 
taste for luxury, do not grieve about it. Lux- 
ury is not so bad a thing as it is often sup- 
posed to be ; and if it w^ere, still we must fol- 
low the course of things, and turn to advantage 
what exists, since we have not the power to 
annihilate or create. The very definition of 
'luxury ' is as difiicult as the suppression of it." 
In another letter he remarked that he thought 
there were quite as many knaves among the 
men who went on foot as there were among 
those who drove in carriages. 

Jay at this time, having been successively a 
member of the Continental Congress, the New 
York Legislature, and the State Constitutional 



FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. HI 

Convention, having also been the first chief 
justice of his native state, and then presi- 
dent of the Continental Congress, had been 
sent as our minister to Spain. Morris always 
kept up an intimate correspondence with him. 
It is noticeable that the three great revolu- 
tionary statesmen from New York, Hamilton, 
Ja3% and Morris, always kept on good terms, 
and always worked together ; while the friend- 
ship between two. Jay and Morris, was very 
close. 

The two men, in their correspondence, now 
and then touched on other than state matters. 
One of Jay's letters which deals with the edu- 
cation of his children would be most healthful 
reading for those Americans of the present day 
who send their children to be brouglit up 
abroad in Swiss schools, or English and German 
universities. He writes : " I think the youth of 
every free, civilized country should be educated 
in it, and not permitted to travel out of it 
until age has made them so cool and firm as to 
retain their national and moral impressions. 
American youth may possibly form proper and 
perhaps useful friendships in European semi- 
naries, but I think not so prohahly as among 
their fellow-citizens, with whom they are to 
grow up, whom it will be useful for them to 
know and be early known to, and with whom 



112 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

they are to be engaged in tlie business of active 
life. ... I do not hesitate to prefer an Ameri- 
can education." The longer Jay stayed away, 
the more devoted he became to America. He 
had a good, hearty, honest contempt for the 
miserable " cosmopolitanism " so much affected 
by the feebler folk of fashion. As he said he 
" could never become so far a citizen of the 
world as to view every part of it with equal 
regard," for "his affections were deep-rooted 
in America," and he always asserted that he 
had never seen anything in Europe to cause 
him to abate his prejudices in favor of his own 
land. 

Jay had a very hard time at the Spanish 
court, which, he wrote Morris, had "little 
money, less wisdom, and no credit." Spain, al- 
though fighting England, was bitterly jealous 
of the United States, fearing most justly our 
aggressive spirit, and desiring to keep the 
lower Mississippi valley entirely under its own 
control. Jay, a statesman of intensely national 
spirit, was determined to push our boundaries 
as far westward as possible ; he insisted on 
their reaching to the Mississippi, and on our 
having the right to navigate that stream. 
Morris did not agree with him, and on this 
subject, as has been already said, he for once 
showed less than his usual power of insight 



FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 113 

into the future. He wrote Jay that it was 
absurd to quarrel about a country inhabited 
only by red men, and to claim " a territory we 
cannot occupy, a navigation we cannot enjoy." 
He also ventured the curiously false prediction 
that, if the territory beyond the Alleghanies 
should ever be filled up, it would be by a pop- 
ulation drawn from the whole world, not one 
hundredth part of it American, which would 
iinmediatel}^ become an independent and rival 
nation. However, he could not make Jay 
swerve a handsbreadth from his position about 
our western boundaries ; though on every other 
point the two were in hearty accord. 

In relating and forecasting the military 
situation, Morris was more happy. He was 
peculiarly interested in Greene, and from the 
outset foretold the final success of his South- 
ern campaign. In a letter written March 31, 
1781, after the receipt of the news of the 
battle of Guilford Court-house, he describes 
to Jay Greene's forces and prospects. His 
troops included, he writes, " from 1,500 to 2,000 
continentals, many of them raw, and some- 
what more of militia than regular troops, — the 
whole of these almost in a state of nature, and 
of whom it ought to be said, as by Hamlet to 
Horatio, ' Thou hast no other revenue but thy 
good spirits to feed and clothe thee.' " The 



114 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

militia he styled the ''^fruges consumer e nati 
of an army." He then showed the necessity 
of the battle being fought, on account of the 
fluctuating state of the militia, the incapacity 
of the state governments to help themselves, 
the poverty of the country (" so that the very 
teeth of the enemy defend them, especially in 
retreat,"), and above all, because a defeat was 
of little consequence to us, while it would ruin 
the enemy. He wrote : *' There is no loss in 
fighting away two or three hundred men who 
would go home if they were not put in the 
way of being knocked on the head. . . . These 
are unfeeling reflections. I would apologize 
for them to any one who did not know that I 
Lave at least enough of sensibility. The gush 
of sentiment will not alter the nature of things, 
and the business of the statesman is more to 
reason than to feel." Morris was always con- 
fident that we should win in the end, and 
sometimes thought a little punishment really 
did our people good. When Cornwallis was in 
Virginia he wrote : " The enemy are scourging 
the Virginians, at least those of Lower Vir- 
ginia. This is distressing, but will have some 
good consequences. In the mean time the 
delegates of Virginia make as many lamen- 
tations as ever Jeremiah did, and to as good 
purpose perhaps." 



FmANCES: TEE TREATY OF PEACE. 115 

The war was drawing to an end. Great 
Britain had begun the struggle with every- 
thing — allies, numbers, wealth — in her favor ; 
but now, towards the close, the odds were all 
the other way. The French were struggling 
with her on equal terms for the mastery of the 
seas ; the Spaniards were helping the French, 
and were bending every energy to carry through 
successfully the great siege of Gibraltar ; the 
Dutch had joined their ancient enemies, and 
their fleet fought a battle with the English, 
which, for bloody indecisiveness, rivaled the ac- 
tions when Van Tromp and De Ruyter held the 
Channel against Blake and Monk. In India 
the name of Hyder Ali had become a very 
nightmare of horror to the British. In Amer- 
ica, the centre of the war, the day had gone 
conclusive!}^ against the Island folk. Greene 
had doggedly fought and marched his way 
through the Southern States with his ragged, 
under-fed, badly armed troops ; he had been 
beaten in three obstinate battles, had each time 
inflicted a greater relative loss than he received, 
and, after retiring in good order a short dis- 
tance, had always ended by pursuing his lately 
victorious foes ; at the close of the campaign he 
had completely reconquered the Southern States 
by sheer capacity for standing punishment, and 
had cooped up the remaining British force in 



116 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

Charlestown. In the Northern States the British 
held Newport and New York, but could not 
penetrate elsewhere ; while at Yorktown their 
ablest general was obliged to surrender his 
whole army to the overwhelming force brought 
against him by Washington's masterly strategy. 

Yet England, hemmed in by^the ring of her 
foes, fronted them all with a grand courage. In 
her veins the Berserker blood was up, and she 
hailed each new enemy with grim delight, ex- 
erting to the full her warlike strength. Single- 
handed she kept them all at bay, and repaid 
with crippling blows the injuries they had done 
her. In America alone the tide ran too strongly 
to be turned. But Holland was stripjied of all 
her colonies ; in the East, Sir Eyre Coote beat 
down Hyder Ali, and taught Moslem and 
Hindoo alike that they could not shake off the 
grasp of the iron hands that held India. Rod- 
ney won back for his country the supremacy of 
the ocean in that great sea-fight where he shat- 
tered the splendid French navy ; and the long 
siege of Gibraltar closed with the crushing over- 
throw of the assailants. So, with bloody honor, 
England ended the most disastrous war she had 
ever waged. 

The war had brought forth many hard fight- 
ers, but only one great commander, — Washing- 
ton. For the rest, on land, Cornwallis, Greene, 



FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 117 

Rawdon, and possibly Lafayette and Rocham- 
beau, might all rank as fairly good generals, 
probably in the order named, although many 
excellent critics place Greene first. At sea 
Rodney and the Bailli de Suffren won the 
honors ; the latter stands beside Duquesne 
and Tourville in the roll of French admirals ; 
while Rodney was a true latter-day buccaneer, 
as fond of fighting as of plundering, and a first- 
rate hand at both. Neither ranks with such 
mighty sea-chiefs as Nelson, nor yet with Blake, 
Farragut, or Tegethof. 

All parties were tired of the war ; peace was 
essential to all. But of all, America was most 
resolute to win what she had fought for ; and 
America had been the most successful so far. 
English historians — even so generally impar- 
tial a writer as Mr. Lecky — are apt greatly to 
exaggerate our relative exhaustion, and try to 
prove it by quoting from the American leaders 
every statement that shows despondency and 
suffering. If they applied the same rule to 
their own side, they would come to the conclu- 
sion that the British empire was at that time 
on the brink of dissolution. Of course we had 
suffered very heavily, and had blundered badly ; 
but in both respects we were better off than 
our antagonists. Mr. Lecky is right in bestow- 
ing unstinted praise on our diplomatists for the 



118 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

hardihood and success with which they insisted 
on all our demands being granted ; but he is 
wrong when he says or implies tliat the mili- 
tary situation did not warrant their attitude. 
Of all the contestants, America was the most 
willing to continue the fight rather than yield 
her rights. Morris expressed the general feel- 
ing when he wrote to Jay, on August 6, 1782 : 
"Nobody will be thankful for any peace but a 
very good one. This they should have thought 
on who made war with the Republic. I am 
among the number who would be extremely 
ungrateful for the grant of a bad peace. My 
public and private character will both concert 
to render the sentiment coming from me un- 
suspected. Judge, then, of others, judge of the 
many-headed fool who can feel no more than 
his own sorrowing. ... I wish that while the 
war lasts it may be real war, and that when 
peace comes it may be real peace." As to our 
military efficiency, we may take Washington's 
word (in a letter to Jay of October 18, 1782) : 
" I am certain it will afford you pleasure to 
know that our army is better organized, dis- 
ciplined, and clothed than it has been at any 
period since the commencement of the war. 
This you may be assured is the fact." 

Another mistake of English historians — 
again likewise committed by Mr. Lecky — comes 



FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 119 

in their laying so much stress on the help ren- 
dered to the Americans by their allies, while at 
the same time speaking as if England had none. 
As a matter of fact, England would have stood 
no chance at all had the contest been strictly 
confined to British troops on the one hand, and 
to the rebellious colonists on the other. There 
were more German auxiliaries in the British 
ranks than there were French allies in the 
American ; the loyalists, including the regu- 
larly enlisted loyalists as well as the militia who 
took part in the various Tory uprisings, were 
probably more numerous still. The withdrawal 
of all Hessians, Tories, and Indians from the 
British army would have been cheaply pur- 
chased by the loss of our own foreign allies. 

The European powers were even a shade 
more anxious for peace than we were ; and to 
conduct the negotiations for our side, we chose 
three of our greatest statesmen, — Franklin, 
Adams, and Jay. 

Congress, in appointing our commissioners, 
had, with little regard for the national dignity, 
given them instructions which, if obeyed, would 
have rendered them completely subservient to 
France; for they were directed to undertake 
nothing in the negotiations without the knowl- 
edge and concurrence of the French cabinet, 
and in all decisions to be ultimately governed 



120 aOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

by the advice of that body. Morris fiercely 
resented such servile subservience, and in a 
letter to Jay denounced Congress with well- 
justified warmth, writing: "That the proud 
should prostitute the very little dignity this 
poor country is possessed of would be indeed 
astounding, if we did not know the near alliance 
between pride and meanness. Men who have 
too little spirit to demand of their constituents 
that they do their duty, who have sufficient 
humility to beg a paltry pittance at the hands 
of any and every sovereign, — such men will 
always be ready to pay the price Avhich vanity 
shall demand from the vain." Jay promptly 
persuaded his colleagues to unite with him in 
disregarding the instructions of Congress on 
this point ; had he not done so, the dignity of 
our government would, as he wrote Morris, 
" have been in the dust." Franklin was at first 
desirous of yielding obedience to the command ; 
but Adams immediately joined Jay in repudiat- 
ing it. 

We had waged war against Britain, with 
France and Spain as allies ; but in making 
peace we had to strive for our rights against 
our friends almost as much as against our ene- 
mies. There was much generous and disinter- 
ested enthusiasm for America among French- 
men individually ; but the French government, 



FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 121 

with which alone we were to deal in making 
peace, had acted throughout from purely selfish 
motives, and in reality did not. care an atom for 
American rights. We owed France no more 
gratitude for taking our part than she owed us 
for giving her an opportunity of advancing her 
own interests, and striking a severe blow at an 
old-time enemy and rival. As for Spain, she 
disliked us quite as much as she did England. 

The peace negotiations brought all this out 
very clearly. The great French minister Ver- 
gennes, who dictated the policy of his court all 
through the contest, cared nothing for the revo- 
lutionary colonists themselves ; but he was bent 
upon securing them their independence, so as 
to weaken England, and he was also bent upon 
keeping them from gaining too much strength, 
so that they might always remain dependent 
allies of France. He wished to establish the 
"balance of power " system in America. The 
American commissioners he at first despised for 
their blunt, truthful straightforwardness, which 
he, trained in the school of deceit, and a thor- 
ough believer in every kind of finesse and 
double-deahng, mistook for boorishness ; later 
on, he learned to his chagrin that they were 
able as well as honest, and that their resolu- 
tion, skill, and far-sightedness made them, 
where their own deepest interests were con- 



122 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

cerned, over-matches for the subtle diplomats of 
Europe. 

America, then, was determined to secure not 
only independence, but also a chance to grow 
into a great continental nation ; she wished her 
boundaries fixed at the great lakes and the 
Mississippi ; she also asked for the free naviga- 
tion of the latter to the Gulf, and for a share in 
the fisheries. Spain did not even wish that we 
should be made independent ; she hoped to be 
compensated at our expense, for her failure to 
take Gibraltar ; and she desired that we should 
be kept so weak as to hinder us from being 
aggressive. Her fear of us, by the way, was 
perfectly justifiable, for the greatest part of 
our present territory lies within what were 
nominally Spanish limits a hundred years ago. 
France, as the head of a great coalition, wanted 
to keep on good terms with both her allies ; but, 
as Gerard, the French minister at Washington, 
said : if France had to choose between the two, 
" the decision would not be in favor of the 
United States." She wished to secure for 
America independence, but she wished also to 
keep the new nation so weak that it would " feel 
the need of sureties, allies, and protectors." 
France desired to exclude our people from the 
fisheries, to deprive us of half our territories 
by making the Alleghanies our western boun- 



FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE. 123 

daries, and to secure to Spain the undisputed 
control of the navigation of the Mississippi. It 
was not to the interest of France and Spain that 
we should be a great and formidable people, and 
very naturally they would not help us to be- 
come one. There is no need of blaming them 
for their conduct ; but it would have been rank 
folly to have been guided by their wishes. Our 
true policy was admirably summed up by Jay 
in his letters to Livingston, where he says : 
" Let us be honest and grateful to France, but 
let us think for ourselves. . . . Since we have 
assumed a phice in the political firmament, let 
us move like a primary and not a secondary 
planet." Fortunately, England's own self-in- 
terest made her play into our hands ; as Fox 
put it, it was necessary for her to " insist in 
the strongest manner that, if America is inde- 
pendent, she must be so of the whole world. 
No spcret, tacit, or ostensible connection with 
France.'' 

Our statesmen won ; we got all we asked, 
as much to the astonishment of France as of 
England ; we proved even more successful in 
diplomacy than in arms. As Fox had hoped, 
we became independent not only of England, 
but of all the world ; we were not entangled 
as a dependent subordinate in the policy of 
France, nor did we sacrifice our western boun- 



124 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

dary to Spain. It was a great triumph ; greater 
than any that had been won by our soldiers. 
Franklin had a comparatively small share in 
gaining it ; the glory of carrying through suc- 
cessfully the most important treaty we ever 
negotiated belongs to Jay and Adams, and es- 
pecially to Jay. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL CONSTI- 
TUTION. 

Before peace was established, Morris had 
been appointed a commissioner to treat for the 
exchange of prisoners. Nothing came of his 
efforts, however, the British and Americans 
being utterly unable to come to any agreement. 
Both sides had been greatly exasperated, — 
the British by the Americans' breach of faith 
about Burgoyne's troops, and the Americans 
by the inhuman brutality with which their 
captive countrymen had been treated. An 
amusing feature of the affair was a conversa- 
tion between Morris and the British general, 
Dalrymple, wherein the former assured the 
latter rather patronizingly that the British 
" still remained a great people, a very great 
people," and that *' they would undoubtedly 
still hold their rank in Europe." He would 
have been surprised, had he known not only 
that the stubborn Island folk were destined 
soon to hold a higher rank in Europe than 



126 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

ever before, but that from their loins other 
nations, broad as continents, were to spring, so 
that the South Seas should become an English 
ocean, and that over a fourth of the world's 
surface there should be spoken the tongue of 
Pitt and Washington. 

No sooner was peace declared, and the im- 
mediate and pressing danger removed, than the 
confederation relapsed into a loose knot of com- 
munities as quarrelsome as they were contemp- 
tible. The states-rights men for the moment 
had things all their own way, and speedily 
reduced us to the level afterwards reached by 
the South-American republics. Each common- 
wealth set up for itself, and tried to oppress 
its neighbors ; not one had a creditable history 
for the next four years ; while the career of 
Rhode Island in particular can only be properly 
described as infamous. We refused to pay our 
debts, we would not even pay our army; and 
mob violence flourished rankly. As a natural 
result the European powers began to take ad- 
vantage of our weakness and division. 

All our great men saw the absolute need of 
establishing a National Union — not a league 
or a confederation — if the country was to be 
saved. None felt this more strongly than 
Morris ; and no one was more hopeful of the 
final result. Jay had written to him as to the 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 127 

need of " raising and maintaining a national 
spirit in America ; " and he wrote in reply, 
at different times : ^ " Mucli of convulsion will 
ensue, yet it must terminate in giving to gov- 
ernment that power without which government 
is but a name. . . . This country has never yet 
been known to Europe, and God knows whether 
it ever will be. To England it is less known 
than to any other part of Europe, because they 
constantly view it through a medium of either 
prejudice or faction. True it is that the gen- 
eral government wants energy, and equally 
true it is that the want will eventually be sup- 
plied. A national spirit is the natural result 
of national existence ; and aUhougli some of the 
present generation may feel the result of colonial 
oppositions of opinion^ that generation will die 
aivay^ and give place to a race of Americayis, 
On this occasion, as on others, Great Britain 
is our best friend ; and, by seizing the critical 
moment when we were about to divide, she has 
shown us the dreadful consequences of division. 
. . . Indeed, my friend, nothing can do us 
so much good as to convince the Eastern and 
Southern States how necessary it is to give 
proper force to the federal government, and 
nothing will so soon operate that conviction as 
foreign efforts to restrain the navigation of the 
1 The italics are mine. 



128 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

one and the commerce of the other." The last 
sentence referred to the laws aimed at our 
trade by Great Britain, and by other powers 
as well, — symptoms of outside hostility which 
made us at once begin to draw together again. 
Money troubles grew apace, and produced 
the usual crop of crude theories and of vicious 
and dishonest legislation in accordance there- 
with. Lawless outbreaks became common, and 
in Massachusetts culminated in actual rebellion. 
The mass of the people were rendered hostile 
to any closer union by their ignorance, their 
jealousy, and the general particularistic bent 
of their minds, — this last being merely a vi- 
cious graft on, or rather outgrowth of, the love 
of freedom inborn in the race. Their leaders 
were enthusiasts of pure purpose and unsteady 
mental vision ; they were followed by the mass 
of designing politicians, who feared that their 
importance would be lost if their sphere of ac- 
tion should be enlarged. Among these leaders 
the three most important were, in New York 
George Clinton, and in Massachusetts and Vir- 
ginia two much greater men — Samuel Adams 
and Patrick Henry. All three had done excel- 
lent service at the beginning of the revolution- 
ary troubles. Patrick Henry lived to redeem 
himself, almost in his last hour, by the noble 
stand he took in aid of Washington against the 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 129 

democratic nullification agitation of Jefferson 
and Madison ; but the usefulness of each of the 
other two was limited to the early portion of 
his career. 

Like every other true patriot and statesman, 
Morris did all in his power to bring into one 
combination the varied interests favorable to 
the formation of a government that should be 
strong and responsible as well as free. The 
public creditors and the soldiers of the army 
— whose favorite toasts were : " A hoop to the 
barrel," and "Cement to the Union" — were 
the two classes most sensible of the advantages 
of such a government; and to each of these 
Morris addressed himself when he proposed to 
consolidate the public debt, both to private 
citizens and to the soldiers, and to make it a 
charge on the United States, and not on the 
several separate states. 

In consequence of the activity and ability 
with which he advocated a firmer Union, the 
extreme states-rights men were especially hos- 
tile to him ; and certain of their number as- 
sailed him with bitter malignity, both then and 
afterwards. One accusation was, that he had 
improper connections with the public creditors. 
This was a pure slander, absolutely without 
foundation, and not supported by even the pre- 
tence of proof. Another accusation was that 



130 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

he favored the establishment of a monarchy. 
This was likewise entirely untrue. Morris was 
not a sentimental political theorist ; he was an 
eminently practical — that is, useful — states- 
man, who saw with unusual clearness that each 
people must have a government suited to its 
own individual character, and to the stage of 
political and social development it had reached. 
He realized that a nation must be governed 
according to the actual needs and capacities 
of its citizens, not according to any abstract 
theory or set of ideal principles. He would 
have dismissed with contemptuous laughter the 
ideas of those Americans who at the present 
day believe that Anglo-Saxon democracy can 
be applied successfully to a half-savage negroid 
people in Hayti, or of those Englishmen who 
consider seriously the proposition to renovate 
Turkey by giving her representative institu- 
tions and a parliamentary government. He 
understood and stated that a monarchy " did 
not consist with the taste and temper of the 
people " in America, and he believed in estab- 
lishing a form of government that did. Like 
almost every other statesman of the day, the 
perverse obstinacy of the extreme particularist 
section at times made him downhearted, and 
caused him almost to despair of a good govern- 
ment being established ; and like every sensible 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 131 

man he would have preferred ahnost any strong, 
orderly government to the futile anarchy 
towards which the ultra states-rights men or 
separatists tended. Had these last ever finally 
obtained the upper hand, either in revolu- 
tionary or post-revolutionary times, either in 
1787 or 1861, the fact would have shown con- 
clusively that Americans were unfitted for re- 
publicanism and self-government. An orderly 
monarchy would certainly be preferable to a 
republic of the epileptic Spanish - American 
type. The extreme doctrinaires, who are fier- 
cest in declaiming in favor of freedom are in 
reality its worst foes, far more dangerous than 
any absolute monarchy ever can be. When 
liberty becomes license, some form of one-man 
power is not far distant. 

The one great reason for our having suc- 
ceeded as no other people ever has, is to be 
found in that common sense which has enabled 
us to preserve the largest possible individual 
freedom on the one hand, while showing an 
equally remarkable capacity for combination 
on the other. We have committed plenty of 
faults, but we have seen and remedied them. 
Our very doctrinaires have usually acted much 
more practically than they have talked. Jeffer- 
son, when in power, adopted most of the F'ed- 
eralist theories, and became markedly hostile 



132 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

to the nullification movements at whose birth 
he had himself oflSciated. We have often blun- 
dered badly in the beginning, but we have al- 
ways come out well in the end. The Dutch, 
when they warred for freedom from Spanish 
rule, showed as much short-sighted selfishness 
and bickering jealous}^ as even our own revo- 
lutionary ancestors, and only a part remained 
faithful to the end : as a result, but one section 
won independence, while the Netherlands were 
divided, and never grasped the power that 
should have been theirs. As for the Spanish- 
Americans, they split up hopelessly almost be- 
fore tliey were free, and, though they bettered 
their condition a little, yet lost nine tenths of 
what they had gained. Scotland and Ireland, 
when independent, were nests of savages. All 
the follies our forefathers committed can be 
paralleled elsewhere, but their successes are 
unique. 

So it was in the few years immediately suc- 
ceeding the peace by which we won our inde- 
pendence. The mass of the people wished for 
no closer union than was to be found in a lax 
confederation ; but they had the good sense to 
learn the lesson taught by the weakness and 
lawlessness they saw around them ; they re- 
luctantly made up their minds to the need of a 
stronger government, and when they had once 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 133 

come to their decision, neither demagogue nor 
doctrinaire could swerve them from it. 

The national convention to form a Consti- 
tution met in May, 1787 ; and rarely in the 
world's history has there been a deliberative 
body which contained so many remarkable men, 
or produced results so lasting and far-reaching. 
The Congress whose members signed the Dec- 
laration of Independence had but cleared the 
ground on which the framers of the Constitu- 
tion were to build. Among the delegates in 
attendance, easily first stood Washington and 
Franklin, — two of that great American trio in 
which Lincoln is the third. Next came Hamil- 
ton from New York, having as colleagues a 
couple of mere obstructionists sent by the Clin- 
tonians to handicap him. From Pennsylvania 
came Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris ; 
from Virginia, Madison; from South Carolina, 
Rutledge and the Pinckneys ; and so on through 
the other states. Some of the most noted 
statesmen were absent, however. Adams and 
Jefferson were abroad. Jay was acting as Sec- 
retary for Foreign Affairs ; in which capacit}^ 
by the way, he had shown most unlooked-for 
weakness in yielding to Spanish demands about 
the Mississippi. 

Two years after taking part in the proceed- 
ings of the American Constitutional Convention, 



134 aOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

Morris witnessed the opening of tlie States 
General of France. He thoroughly appreciated 
the absolute and curious contrast offered by 
these two bodies, each so big with fate for all 
mankind. The men who predominated in and 
shaped the actions of the first belonged to a 
type not uncommonly brought forth by a peo- 
ple already accustomed to freedom at a crisis in 
the struggle to preserve or extend its liberties. 
During the past few centuries this type had ap- 
peared many times among the liberty loving 
nations who dwelt on the shores of the Baltic 
and the North Sea ; and our forefathers repre- 
sented it in its highest and most perfect shapes. 
It is a t3^pe only to be found among men al- 
ready trained to govern themselves as well as 
others. The American statesmen were the 
kinsfolk and fellows of Hampden and Pym, of 
William the Silent and John of Barneveldt. 
Save love of freedom, they had little in common 
with the closet philosophers, the enthusiastic 
visionaries, and the selfish demagogues who in 
France helped pull up the flood-gates of an all- 
swallowing torrent. They were great men ; but 
it was less the greatness of mere genius than 
that springing from the union of strong, virile 
qualities with steadfast devotion to a high ideal. 
In certain respects they were ahead of all their 
European compeers; yet they preserved virtues 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 135 

forgotten or sneered at by the contemporaneous 
generation of trans - Atlantic leaders. They 
wrouglit for the future as surely as did the 
French Jacobins; but their spirit was the spirit 
of the Long Parliament, The were resolute to 
free themselves from the tyranny of man ; but 
they had not unlearned the reverence felt by 
their fathers for their fathers' God. They were 
sincerely religious. The advanced friends of free- 
dom abroad scoffed at religion, and would have 
laughed outright at a proposition to gain help 
for their cause by prayer ; but to the founders 
of our Constitution, when matters were at a 
deadlock, and the outcome looked almost hope- 
less, it seemed a most fit and proper thing that 
one of the chief of their number should propose 
to invoke to aid them a wisdom greater than 
the wisdom of human beings. Even those 
among their descendants who no longer share 
their trusting faith may yet well do regretful 
homage to a religious spirit so deep-rooted and 
so strongly tending to bring out a pure and 
high morality. The statesmen who met in 
1787 were earnestly patriotic. They unselfishly 
desired the welfare of their countrymen. They 
were cool, resolute men, of strong convictions, 
with clear insight into the future. They were 
thoroughly acquainted with the needs of the 
community for which they were to act. Above 



136 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

all they possessed that inestimable quality, so 
characteristic of their race, hard-headed com- 
mon sense. Their theory of government was 
a very high one ; but they understood perfectly 
that it had to be accommodated to the short- 
comings of the average citizen. Small indeed 
was their resemblance to the fiery orators and 
brilliant pamphleteers of the States General. 
They were emphatically good men ; they were 
no less emphatically practical men. The}^ 
would have scorned Mirabeau as a scoundrel ; 
they would have despised Sieyes as a vain and 
impractical theorist. 

The deliberations of the convention in their 
result illustrated in a striking manner the truth 
of the American principle, that — for delibera- 
tive, not executive, purposes — the wisdom of 
many men is worth more than the wisdom of 
any one man. The Constitution that the mem- 
bers assembled in convention finally produced 
was not only the best possible one for America 
at that time, but it was also, in spite of its 
short-comings, and taking into account its fit- 
ness for our own people and conditions, as well 
as its accordance with the principles of abstract 
right, probably the best that any nation has ever 
had, while it was beyond question a very much 
better one than any single member could have 
prepared. The particularist statesmen would 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 137 

have practically denied us any real union or 
eflScient executive power ; while there was hardly 
a Federalist member who would not, in his 
anxiety to avoid the evils from which we were 
suffering, have given us a government so cen- 
tralized and aristocratic that it would have 
been utterly unsuited to a proud, liberty-loving, 
and essentially democratic race, and would have 
infallibly provoked a tremendous reactionary 
revolt. 

It is impossible to read through the debates 
of the convention without being struck by the 
innumerable shortcomings of each individual 
plan proposed by the several members, as di- 
vulged in their speeches, when compared with 
the plan finally adopted. Had the result been 
in accordance with the views of the strong-gov- 
ernment men like Hamilton on the one hand, or 
of the weak-government men like Franklin on 
the other, it would have been equally disastrous 
for the country. The men who afterwards 
naturally became the chiefs of the Federalist 
party, and who included in their number the 
bulk of the great revolutionary leaders, were 
the ones to whom we mainly owe our present 
form of government; certainly we owe them 
more, both on this and on other points, than 
we do their rivals, the after -time Democrats. 
Yet there were some articles of faith in the 



138 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

creed of the latter so essential to our national 
wellbeing, and yet so counter to the prejudices 
of the Federalists, that it was inevitable they 
should triumph in the end. Jefferson led the 
Democrats to victory only when he had learned 
to acquiesce thoroughly in some of the funda- 
mental principles of Federalism, and the govern- 
ment of himself and his successors was good 
chiefly in so far as it followed out the theories 
of the Hamiltonians ; while Hamilton and the 
Federalists fell from power because they could 
not learn the one great truth taught by Jeffer- 
son, — that in America a statesman should 
trust the people, and should endeavor to se- 
cure to each man all possible individual liberty, 
confident that he will use it aright. The old- 
school Jeffersonian theorists believed in " a 
strong people and a weak government." Lin- 
coln was the first who showed how a strong 
people might have a strong government and 
yet remain the freest on the earth. He seized 
— half unwittingly — all that was best and 
wisest in the traditions of Federalism ; he was 
the true successor of the Federalist leaders ; but 
he grafted on their system a profound belief 
that the great heart of the nation beat for 
truth, honor, and liberty. 

This fact, that in 1787 all the thinkers of 
the day drew out plans that in some respects 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 139 

went very wide of the mark, must be kept in 
mind, or else we shall judge each particular 
thinker with undue harshness when we examine 
his utterances without comparing them with 
those of his fellows. But one partial exception 
can be made. In the Constitutional Conven- 
tion Madison, a moderate Federalist, was the 
man who, of all who were there, saw things 
most clearly as they were, and whose theories 
most closely corresponded with the principles 
finally adopted ; and although even he was at 
first dissatisfied with the result, and both by 
word and by action interpreted the Constitu- 
tion in widely different ways at different times, 
still this was Madison's time of glory : he was 
one of the statesmen who do extremely useful 
work, but only at some single given crisis. 
While the Constitution was being formed and 
adopted, he stood in the very front ; but in his 
later career he sunk his own individuality, and 
became a mere pale shadow of Jefferson. 

Morris played a very prominent part in the 
convention. He was a ready speaker, and 
among all the able men present there was 
probably no such really brilliant thinker. In 
the debates he spoke more often than any one 
else, although Madison was not far behind him; 
and his speeches betrayed, but with marked 
and exaggerated emphasis, both the virtues and 



140 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

the shortcomings of the Federalist school of 
thought. They show us, too, why he never 
rose to the first rank of statesmen. His keen, 
masterful mind, his far-sightedness, and the force 
and subtlety of his reasoning were all marred 
by his incurable cynicism and deep-rooted dis- 
trust of mankind. He throughout appears as 
advocatus diaholi; he puts the lowest interpre- 
tation upon every act, and frankly avows his 
disbelief in all generous and unselfish motives. 
His continual allusions to the overpowering 
influence of the baser passions, and to their 
mastery of the human race at all times, drew 
from Madison, although the two men generally 
acted together, a protest against his " forever 
inculcating the utter political depravity of men, 
and the necessity for opposing one vice and 
interest as the only possible check to another 
vice and interest." 

Morris championed a strong national govern- 
ment, wherein he was right ; but he also cham- 
pioned a system of class representation, leaning 
towards aristocracy, wherein he was wrong. 
Not Hamilton himself was a firmer believer in 
the national idea. His one great object was to 
secure a powerful and lasting Union, instead of 
a loose federal league. It must be remembered 
that in the convention the term " federal " was 
used in exactly the opposite sense to the one in 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 141 

which it was taken afterwards ; that is, it was 
used as the antithesis of " national," not as its 
synonym. The states-rights men used it to 
express a system of government such as that of 
the old federation of the thirteen colonies ; while 
their opponents called themselves Nationalists, 
and only took the title of Federalists after the 
Constitution had been formed, and then simply 
because the name was popular with the masses. 
They thus appropriated their adversaries' party 
name, bestowing it on the organization most 
hostile to their adversaries' party theories. Sim- 
ilarly, the term '' Republican Party," which 
was originally in our history merely another 
name for the Democracy, has in the end been 
adopted by the chief opponents of the latter. 

The difficulties for the convention to surmount 
seemed insuperable ; on almost every question 
that came up, there were clashing interests. 
Strong government and weak government, pure 
democracy or a modified aristocracy, small states 
and large states, North and South, slavery and 
freedom, agricultural sections as against com- 
mercial sections, — on each of twenty points the 
delegates split into hostile camps, that could only 
be reconciled by concessions from both sides. 
The Constitution was not one compromise; it 
was a bundle of compromises, all needful. 

Morris, like every other member of the con- 



142 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

vention, sometimes took the right and some- 
times the wrong side on the successive issues 
that arose. But on the most important one of 
all he made no error ; and he commands our 
entire sympathy for liis thorough-going nation- 
alism. As was to be expected, he had no re- 
gard whatever for states rights. He wished to 
deny to the small states the equal representa- 
tion in the Senate finally allowed them ; and he 
was undoubtedly right theoretically. No good 
argument can be adduced in support of the pres- 
ent system on that point. Still, it has thus far 
worked no harm ; the reason being that our states 
have merely artificial boundaries, while those of 
small population have hitherto been distributed 
pretty evenly among the different sections, so 
that they have been split up like the others on 
every important issue, and thus have never 
been arrayed against the rest of the country. 

Though Morris and his side were defeated in 
their efforts to have the states represented pro- 
portionally in the Senate, yet they carried their 
point as to representation in the House. Also 
on the general question of making a national 
government, as distinguished from a league or 
federation, the really vital point, their triumph 
was complete. The Constitution they drew up 
and had adopted no more admitted of legal or 
peaceable rebellion — whether called secession 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 143 

or nullification — on the part of the state than 
on the part of a county or an individual. 

Morris expressed his own views with his 
usual clear-cut, terse vigor when he asserted 
that " state attachments and state importance 
had been the bane of the country," and that he 
came, not as a mere delegate from one section, 
but " as a representative of America, — a repre- 
sentative in some degree of the whole human 
race, for the whole human race would be af- 
fected by the outcome of the convention." And 
he poured out the flood of his biting scorn on 
those gentlemen who came there " to truck and 
bargain for their respective states," asking what 
man there was who could tell with certainty 
the state wherein he — and even more where- 
in his children — would live in the future ; and 
reminding the small states, with cavalier indif- 
ference, that, " if they did not like the Union, 
no matter, — they would have to come in, 
and that was all there was about it ; for if per- 
suasion did not unite the country, then the 
sword would." His correct language and dis- 
tinct enunciation — to which Madison has borne 
witness — allowed his grim truths to carry their 
full weight ; and he brought them home to his 
hearers with a rough, almost startling earnest- 
ness and directness. Many of those present 
must have winced when he told them that it 



144 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

would matter nothing to America " if all the 
charters and constitutions of the states were 
thrown into the fire, and all the demagogues 
into the ocean," and asserted that " any par- 
ticular state ought to be injured, for the sake 
of a majorit}^ of the people, in case its conduct 
showed that it deserved it." He held that we 
should create a national government, to be the 
one and onl}^ supreme power in the land, — one 
which, unlike a mere federal league, such as we 
then lived under, should have complete and 
compulsive operation ; and he instanced the ex- 
amples as well of Greece as of Germany and the 
United Netherlands, to prove that local juris- 
diction destroyed every tie of nationality. 

It shows the boldness of the experiment in 
which we were engaged, that we were forced to 
take all other nations, whether dead or living, 
as warnings, not examples ; whereas, since we 
succeeded, we have served as a pattern to be 
copied, either wholly or in part, by every other 
people that has followed in our steps. Before 
our own experience, each similar attempt, save 
perhaps on the smallest scale, had been a failure. 
Where so many other nations teach by their 
mistakes, we are among the few who teach by 
their successes. 

Be it noted also that, the doctrinaires to the 
contrary notwithstanding, we proved that a 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 145 

strong central government was perfectly com- 
patible with absolute democracy. Indeed, the 
separatist spirit does not lead to true demo- 
cratic freedom. Anarchy is the handmaiden of 
tyranny. Of all the states, South Carolina has 
shown herself (at least throughout the greater 
part of the present century) to be the most 
aristocratic, and the most wedded to the sepa- 
ratist spirit. The German masses were never 
so ground down by oppression as when the lit- 
tle German principalities were most indepen- 
dent of each other and of any central authority. 
Morris believed in letting the United States 
interfere to put down a rebellion in a state, 
even though the executive of the state himself 
should be at the head of it ; and he was sup- 
ported in his views by Pinckney, the ablest 
member of the brilliant and useful but un- 
fortunately short-lived school of South Carolina 
Federalists. Pinckney was a thorough-going 
Nationalist ; he wished to go a good deal further 
than the convention actually went in giving 
the central government complete control. Thus 
he proposed that Congress should have power 
to negative by a two-thirds vote all state laws 
inconsistent with the harmony of the Union. 
Madison also wished to give Congress a veto 
over state legislation. Morris believed that a 
national law should be allowed to repeal any 



146 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

state law, and that Congress should legislate in 
all cases where the laws of the states conflicted 
among themselves. 

Yet Morris, on the very question of nation- 
alism, himself showed the narrowest, blindest, 
and least excusable sectional jealousy on one 
point. He felt as an American for all the 
Union, as it then existed ; but he feared and 
dreaded the growth of the Union in the West, 
the very place where it was inevitable, as well 
as in the highest degree desirable, that the 
greatest growth should take place. He actually 
desired the convention to commit the criminal 
folly of attempting to provide that the West 
should always be kept subordinate to the East. 
Fortunately he failed ; but the mere attempt 
casts the gravest discredit alike on his far-sight- 
edness and on his reputation as a statesman. It 
is im [possible to understand how one who was 
usually so cool and clear-headed an observer 
could have blundered so flagrantly on a point 
hardly less vital than the establishment of the 
Union itself. Indeed, had his views been carried 
through, they would in the end have nullified 
all the good bestowed by the Union. In speak- 
ing against state jealousy, he had shown its 
foolishness by observing that no man could tell 
in what state his children would dwell ; and 
the folly of the speaker himself was made quite 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 147 

as clear b}^ his not perceiving that their most 
likely dwelling-place was in the West. This 
jealousy of the West was even more discreditable 
to the Northeast than the jealousy of America 
had been to England; and it continued strong, 
especially in New England, for very many 
years. It was a mean and unworthy feeling; 
and it was greatly to the credit of the Southern- 
ers that they shared it only to a very small 
extent. Tlie South in fact orighially was in 
heartiest sympathy with the West ; it was not 
until the middle of the present century that the 
country beyond the Alleghanies became prepon- 
deratingly Northern in sentiment. In the Con- 
stitutional Convention itself, Butler, of South 
Carolina, pointed out " that the people and 
strength of America were evidently tending 
westwardly and southwestwardly." 

Morris wished to discriminate against the 
West by securing to the Atlantic States the per- 
petual control of the Union. He brought this 
idea up again and again, insisting that we should 
reserve to ourselves the right to put conditions 
on the Western States when we should admit 
them. He dwelt at length on the danger of 
throwing the preponderance of influence into the 
Western scale; stating his dread of the "back 
members," who were always the most ignorant, 
and the opponents of all good measures. He 



148 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

foretold with fear that some day the people of 
the West would outnumber the people of the 
East, and he wished to put it in the power of 
the latter to keep a majority of the votes in 
their own hands. Apparently he did not see 
that, if the West once became as populous as 
he predicted, its legislators would forthwith 
cease to be "back members." The futility of 
bis fears, and still more of his remedies, was so 
evident that the convention paid very little heed 
to either. 

On one point, however, his anticipations of 
harm were reasonable, and indeed afterwards 
came true in part. He insisted that the West, 
or interior, would join the South and force us 
into a war with some European power, wherein 
the benefits would accrue to them and the harm 
to the Northeast. The attitude of the South 
and West already clearly foreshadowed a strug- 
gle with Spain for the Mississippi Valley ; and 
such a struggle would surely have come, either 
with the French or Spaniards, had we failed to 
secure the territory in question by peaceful 
purchase. As it was, the realization of Morris's 
prophecy was only put off for a few years ; the 
South and West brought on the War of 1812, 
wherein the East was the chief sufferer. 

On the question as to whether the Constitu- 
tion should be made absolutely democratic or 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 149 

not, Morris took the conservative side. On the 
suffrage Lis views are perfectly defensible : he 
believed that it should be limited to freeholders. 
He rightly considered the question as to how 
widely it should be extended to be one of expe- 
diency merely. It is simply idle folly to talk 
of suffrage as being an '' inborn " or "natural" 
right. There are enormous communities totally 
unfit for its exercise ; while true universal 
suffrage never has been, and never will be, 
seriously advocated by any one. There must 
always be an age limit, and such a limit must 
necessarily be purely arbitrary. The wildest 
democrat of revolutionary times did not dream 
of doing away with the restrictions of race and 
I sex which kept most American citizens from 

the ballot-box ; and there is certainly much less 
abstract right in a system which limits the 
suffrage to people of a certain color than there 
is in one which limits it to people who come up 
to a given standard of thrift and intelligence. 
On the other hand, our experience has not 
proved that men of wealth make any better use 
of their ballots than do, for instance, mechanics 
and other handicraftsmen. No plan could be 
adopted so perfect as to be free from all draw- 
backs. On the whole, however, and taking our 
country in its length and breadth, manhood 
suffrage has worked well, better than would 



150 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

have been the case with any other system; but 
even here there are certain localities whei-e its 
results have been evil, and must simply be ac- 
cepted as the blemishes inevitably attendant 
upon, and marring, any effort to carry out a 
scheme that will be widely applicable. 

Morris contended that his plan would work 
no novel or great hardship, as the people in 
several states were already accustomed to free- 
hold suffrage. He considered the freeholders 
to be the best guardians of liberty, and main- 
tained that the restriction of the right to 
them was only creating a necessary safeguard 
" against the dangerous influence of those 
people without property or principle, with 
whom, in the end, our country, like all other 
countries, was sure to abound." He did not 
believe that the ignorant and dependent could 
be trusted to vote. Madison supported him 
heartily, likewise thinking the freeholders the 
safest guardians of our rights ; he indulged 
in some gloomy (and fortunately hitherto un- 
verified) forebodings as to our future, which 
sound strangely coming from one who was 
afterwards an especial pet of the Jeffersonian 
democracy. He said : " In future times a 
great majority of the people will be without 
landed or any other property. They will then 
either combine under the influence of their 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 151 

common situation, — in which case the rights 
of property and the public liberty will not be 
safe in their hands, — or, as is more probable, 
they will become the tools of opulence and am- 
bition." 

Morris also enlarged on this last idea. " Give 
the votes to people who have no property, 
and they will sell them to the rich," said he. 
When taunted with his aristocratic tendencies, 
he answered that he had long ceased to be the 
dupe of words, that the mere sound of the name 
"aristocracy" had no terrors for him, but that 
he did fear lest harm should result to the people 
from the unacknowledged existence of the very 
thing they feared to mention. As he put it, 
there never was or would be a civilized society 
without an aristocracy^ and his endeavor was 
to keep it as much as possible from doing mis- 
chief. He thus professed to be opposed to the 
existence of an aristocracy, but convinced that 
it would exist anyhow, and that therefore the 
best thing to be done was to give it a recog- 
nized place, while clipping its wings so as to 
prevent its working harm. In pursuance of 
this theory, he elaborated a wild plan, the chief 
feature of which was the provision for an aris- 
tocratic senate, and a popular or democratic 
house, which were to hold each other in check, 
and thereby prevent either party from doing 



152 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

damage. He believed t"hat the senators should 
be appointed by the national executive, who 
should fill up the vacancies that occurred. To 
make the upper house effective as a checking 
branch, it should be so constituted to as have a 
personal interest in checking the other branch ; 
it should be a senate for life, it should be rich, 
it should be aristocratic. He continued : — It 
would then do wrong ? He believed so ; he 
hoped so. The rich would strive to enslave the 
rest; they always did. The proper security 
against them was to form them into a separate 
interest. The two forces would then control 
each other. By thus combining and setting 
apart the aristocratic interest, the popular in- 
terest would also be combined against it. 
There would be mutual check and mutual 
security. If, on the contrary, the rich and 
poor were allowed to mingle, then, if the coun- 
try were commercial, an oligarchy would be 
established ; and if it were not, an unlimited 
democracy would ensue. It was best to look 
truth in the face. The loaves and fishes would 
be needed to bribe demagogues ; while as for 
the people, if left to themselves, they would 
never act from reason alone. The rich would 
take advantage of their passions, and the result 
would be either a violent aristocracy, or a more 
violent despotism. — The speech containing 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 153 

these extraordinary sentiments, which do no 
particular credit to either Morris's head or 
heart, is given in substance by Madison in the 
" Debates." Madison's report is undoubtedly 
correct, for, after writing it, he showed it to the 
speaker himself, who made but one or two ver- 
bal alterations. 

Morris applied an old theory in a new way 
when he proposed to make " taxation propor- 
tional to representation " throughout the Union. 
He considered the preservation of property as 
being the distinguishing object of civilization, 
as liberty was sufficiently guaranteed even by 
savagery ; and therefore he held that the repre- 
sentation in the senate should be according to 
property as well as numbers. But when this 
proposition was defeated, he declined to sup- 
port one making property qualifications for 
congressmen, remarking that such were proper 
for the electors rather than the elected. 

His views as to the power and functions of 
the national executive were in the main sound, 
and he succeeded in having most of them em- 
bodied in the Constitution. He wished to 
have the President hold office during good be- 
havior ; and, though this was negatived, he 
succeeded in having him made reeligible to 
the position. He was instrumental in giving 
him a qualified veto over legislation, and in 



154 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

providing for his impeachment for misconduct ; 
and also in having him made commander-in- 
chief of the forces of the republic, and in 
allowing him the appointment of governmental 
officers. The especial service he rendered, 
however, was his successful opposition to the 
plan whereby the President was to be elected 
by the legislature. This proposition he com- 
bated with all his strength, showing that it 
would take away greatly from the dignity of 
the executive, and would render his election a 
matter of cabal and faction, " like the election 
of the pope by a conclave of cardinals." He 
contended that the President should be chosen 
by the people at large, by the citizens of the 
United States, acting through electors whom 
they had picked out. He showed the probabil- 
ity that in such a case the people would unite 
upon a man of continental reputation, as the 
influence of designing demagogues and tricksters 
is generally powerful in proportion as the limits 
within which they work are narrow ; and the 
importance of the stake would make all men 
inform themselves thoroughly as to the char- 
acters and capacities of those who were con- 
tending for it; and he flatly denied the state- 
ments, that were made in evident good faith, to 
the effect that in a general election each State 
would cast its vote for its own favorite citizen. 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 155 

He inclined to regard the President in the light 
of a tribune chosen by the people to watch 
over the legislature ; and giving him the ap- 
pointing power, he believed, would force him 
to make good use of it, owing to his sense of 
responsibility to the people at large, who would 
be directly affected by its exercise, and who 
could and would hold him accountable for its 
abuse. 

On the judiciary his views were also sound. 
He upheld the power of the judges, and main- 
tained that they should have absolute decision 
as to the constitutionality of any law. By 
I this means he hoped to provide against the 

( encroachments of the popular branch of the 

' government, the one from which danger was 

[ to be feared, as "virtuous citizens will often 

I act as legislators in a way of which they would, 

as private individuals, afterwards be ashamed." 
( He wisely disapproved of low salaries for the 

* judges, showing that the amounts must be fixed 

from time to time in accordance with the 
manner and style of living in the country ; and 
' that good work on the bench, where it was 

I especially needful, like good work everywhere 

I else, could only be insured by a high rate of 

I recompense. On the other hand, he approved 

of introducing into the national Constitution 
the foolish New York state inventions of a 
Council of Revision and an Executive Council. 



156 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

His ideas of the duties and powers of Con- 
gress were likewise very proper on the whole. 
Most citizens of the present day will agree 
with hira that " the excess rather than the 
deficiency of laws is what we have to dread." 
He opposed the hurtful provision which re- 
quires that each congressman should be a 
resident of his own district, urging that con- 
gressmen represented the people at large, as 
well as their own small localities ; and he also 
objected to making officers of the army and 
navy ineligible. He laid much stress on the 
propriety of passing navigation acts to encour- 
age American bottoms and seamen, as a navy 
was essential to our security, and the shipping 
business was always one that stood in peculiar 
need of public patronage. Also, like Hamilton 
and most other Federalists, he favored a policy 
of encouraging domestic manufactures. Inci- 
dentally he approved of Congress having the 
power to lay an embargo, although he has else- 
where recorded his views as to the general 
futility of such kinds of " commercial warfare.'' 
He believed in having a uniform bankruptcy 
law ; approved of abolishing all religious tests 
as qualifications for office, and was utterly op- 
posed to the " rotation in office " theory. 

One curious incident in the convention was 
the sudden outcropping, even thus early, of a 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 157 

" Native American " movement against all for- 
eigners, which was headed by Butler, of South 
Carolina, who himself was of Irish parent- 
age. He strenuously insisted that no foreigners 
whomsoever should be admitted to our councils, 
— a rather odd proposition, considering that it 
would have excluded quite a number of the 
eminent men he was then addressing. Pennsyl- 
vania in particular — whose array of native 
talent has always been far from imposing — had 
a number of foreigners among her delegates, 
and loudly opposed the proposition, as did New 
York. These States wished that there should 
be no discrimination whatever between native 
and foreign born citizens ; but finally a com- 
promise was agreed to, by which the latter 
were excluded only from the Presidency, but 
were admitted to all other rights after a seven 
years' residence, — a period that was certainly 
none too long. 

A much more serious struggle took place 
over the matter of slavery, quite as important 
then as ever, for at that time the negroes were 
a fifth of our population, instead of, as now, 
an eighth. The question, as it came before 
the convention, had several sides to it; the 
especial difficulty arising over the represen- 
tation of the Slave States in Congress, and the 
importation of additional slaves from Africa. 



158 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

No one proposed to abolish slavery off-hand ; 
but an influential though small number of 
delegates, headed by Morris, recognized it as 
a terrible evil, and were very loath either to 
allow the South additional representation for 
the slaves, or to permit the foreign trade in 
them to go on. When the Southern members 
banded together on the issue, and made it evi- 
dent that it was the one which they regarded 
as almost the most important of all, Morris at- 
tacked them in a telling speech, stating with 
his usual boldness facts that most Northerners 
only dared hint at, and summing up with the 
remark that, if he was driven to the dilemma 
of doing injustice to the Southern States or to 
human nature, he would have to do it to the 
former ; certainly he would not encourage the 
slave trade by allowing representation for 
negroes. Afterwards he characterized the pro- 
portional representation of the blacks even 
more strongl}^ as being "a bribe for the im- 
portation of slaves." 

In advocating the proposal, first made by 
Hamilton, that the representation should in all 
cases be proportioned to the number of free 
inhabitants, Morris showed the utter lack of 
logic in the Virginian proposition, which was 
that the Slave States should have additional 
representation to the extent of three fifths of 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 159 

their negroes. If negroes were to be considered 
as inhabitants, then they ought to be added in 
their entire number; if they were to be consid- 
ered as property, then they ought to be counted 
only if all other wealth was likewise included. 
The position of the Southerners was ridiculous : 
he tore their arguments to shreds ; but he was 
powerless to alter the fact that they were 
doggedly determined to carry their point, while 
most of the Northern members cared compara- 
tively little about it. 

In another speech he painted in the blackest 
colors the unspeakable misery and wrong 
wrought by slavery, and showed the blight it 
brought upon the land. " It was the curse of 
Heaven on the states where it prevailed." He 
contrasted the prosperity and happiness of the 
Northern States with the misery and poverty 
which overspread the barren wastes of those 
where slaves were numerous. " Every step you 
take through the great region of slavery pre- 
sents a desert widening with the increasing 
number of these wretched beings." He indig- 
nantly protested against the Northern States 
being bound to march their militia for the 
defense of the Southern States against the 
very slaves of whose existence the northern men 
complained. " He would sooner submit himself 
to a tax for paying for all the negroes in the 



160 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

United States than saddle posterity with such 
a Constitution." 

Some of the high-minded Virginian states- 
men were quite as vigorous as he was in their 
denunciation of the system. One of them, 
George Mason, portrayed the effect of slavery 
upon the people at large with bitter emphasis, 
and denounced the slave traffic as "infernal," 
and slavery as a national sin that would be 
punished by a national calamity, — stating there- 
in the exact and terrible truth. In shameful con- 
trast, many of the Northerners championed the 
institution ; in particular, Oliver Ellsworth, of 
Connecticut, whose name should be branded wdth 
infamy because of the words he then uttered. 
He actually advocated the free importation of 
negroes into the South Atlantic States, because 
the slaves " died so fast in the sickly rice 
swamps " that it was necessary ever to bring 
fresh ones to labor and perish in the places of 
their predecessors ; and, witli a brutal cynicism, 
peculiarly revolting from its mercantile base- 
ness, he brushed aside the question of morality 
as irrelevant, asking his hearers to pay heed 
only to the fact that " what enriches the part 
enriches the whole." 

The Virginians were opposed to the slave 
trade ; but South Carolina and Georgia made 
it a condition of their coming into the Union. 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 161 

It was accordingly agreed that it should be 
allowed for a limited time, — twelve years ; 
and this was afterwards extended to twenty by 
a bargain made by Maryland and the three 
South Atlantic States with the New England 
States, the latter getting in return the help of 
the former to alter certain provisions respect- 
ing commerce. One of the main industries of 
the New England of that day was the manufac- 
ture of rum ; and its citizens cared more for 
their distilleries than for all the slaves held in 
bondage throughout Christendom. The rum 
was made from molasses which they imported 
from the West Indies, and they carried there in 
return the fish taken by their great fishing 
fleets ; they also carried the slaves into the 
Soutliern ports. Their commerce was what 
they especially relied on ; and to gain support 
for it they were perfectly willing to make 
terms with even such a black Mammon of un- 
righteousness as the Southern slaveholding sys- 
tem. Throughout the contest, Morris and a 
few other stout anti-slavery men are the only 
ones who appear to advantage ; the Virginians, 
who were honorably anxious to minimize the 
evils of slavery, come next ; then the other 
Southerners who allowed pressing self-interest 
to overcome their scruples ; and, last of all, the 
New Englanders whom a comparatively trivial 



162 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

self-interest made the willing allies of the ex- 
treme slaveholders. These last were the only 
Northerners who yielded anything to the South- 
ern slaveholders that was not absolutely neces- 
sary ; and yet they were the forefathers of the 
most determined and effective foes that slavery 
ever had. 

As already said, the Southerners stood firm 
on the slave question: it was the one which 
perhaps more than any other offered the most 
serious obstacle to a settlement. Madison 
pointed out " that the real difference la}^ not 
between the small States and the large, but 
between the Northern and the Southern States. 
The institution of slavery and its consequences 
formed the real line of discrimination." To 
talk of this kind Morris at first answered hotly 
enough: — "he saw that the Southern gentle- 
men would not be satisfied unless they saw the 
way open to their gaining a majority in the pub- 
lic councils. ... If [the distinction the}' set up 
between the North and South] was real, instead 
of attempting to blend incompatible things, let 
them at once take a friendly leave of each 
other." He afterwards went back from this 
position, and agreed to the compromise by 
which the slaves were to add, by three fifths of 
their number, to the representation of their 
masters, and the slave trade was to be allowed 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 163 

for a certain number of years, and prohibited 
forever after. He sliowed his usual straight- 
forward willingness to call things by their right 
names in desiring to see " slavery " named 
outright in the Constitution, instead of being 
characterized with cowardly circumlocution, as 
was actually done. 

In finally yielding and assenting to a com- 
promise, he was perfectly right. The crazy 
talk about the iniquity of consenting to any 
recognition of slavery whatever in the Con- 
stitution is quite beside the mark; and it is 
equally irrelevant to assert that the so-called 
" compromises " were not properly compromises 
at all, because there were no mutual conces- 
sions, and the Southern States had "no shadow 
of right " to what they demanded and only in 
part gave up. It was all-important that there 
should be a Union, but it had to result from 
the voluntary action of all the states ; and each 
state had a perfect " right " to demand just 
whatever ifc chose. The really wise and high- 
minded statesmen demanded for themselves 
nothing save justice: but they had to accom- 
plish their purpose by yielding somewhat to the 
prejudices of their more foolish and less disin- 
terested colleagues. It was better to limit the 
duration of the slave trade to twenty years than 
to allow it to be continued indefinitely, as would 



164 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

have been the case had the South Atlantic 
States remained by themselves. The three 
fifths representation of the slaves was an evil 
anomal}^ but it was no worse tlian allowing 
the small states equal representation in the 
Senate ; indeed, balancing the two concessions 
against each other, it must be admitted that 
Virginia and North Carolina surrendered to 
New Hampshire and Rhode Island more than 
they got in return. 

No man who snpported slavery can ever have 
a clear and flawless title to our regard ; and 
those who opposed it merit, in so far, the 
highest honor ; but the opposition to it some- 
times took forms that can be considered only 
as the vagaries of lunacy. The only hope of 
abolishing it lay, first in the establishment 
and then in the preservation of the Union ; 
and if we had at the outset dissolved into a 
knot of struggling anarchies, it would have 
entailed an amount of evil both on our race 
and on all North America, compared to which 
the endurance of slavery for a century or two 
would have been as nothing. If we had even 
split up into only two republics, a Northern 
and a Southern, the West would probably have 
gone with the latter, and to this day slavery 
would have existed throughout the Mississippi 
valley ; much of what is now our territory 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 165 

would have been held by European powers, 
scornfully heedless of our divided might, while 
in not a few states the form of government 
would have been a military dictatorship; and 
indeed our whole history would have been as 
contemptible as was that of Germany for some 
centuries prior to the rise of the house of Hohen- 
zollern. 

The fierceness of the opposition to the adop- 
tion of the Constitution, and the narrowness 
of the majority by which Virginia and New 
York decided in its favor, while North Carolina 
and Rhode Island did not come in at all until 
absolutely forced, showed that the refusal to 
compromise on any one of the points at issue 
would have jeopardized everything. Had the 
slavery interest been in the least dissatisfied, or 
had the plan of government been a shade less 
democratic, or had the smaller States not been 
propitiated, the Constitution would have been 
rejected off-hand ; and the country would have 
had before it decades, perhaps centuries, of 
misrule, violence, and disorder. 

Madison paid a very just compliment to some 
of Morris's best points when he wrote, anent 
his services in the convention : " To the bril- 
liancy of his genius he added, what is too rare, 
a candid surrender of his opinions when the 
light of discussion satisfied him that they had 



166 (WUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

been too hastily formed, and a readiness to aid 
in making the best of measures in which he 
had been overruled." Although so many of 
his own theories had been rejected, he was one 
of the warmest advocates of the Constitution ; 
and it was he who finally drew up the docu- 
ment and put the finish to its style and arrange- 
ment, so that, as it now stands, it comes from 
his pen. 

Hamilton, who more than any other man 
bore the brunt of the fight for its adoption, 
asked Morris to help him in writing the 
" Federalist," but the latter was for some reason 
unable to do so; and Hamilton was assisted 
only by Madison, and to a very slight extent 
by Jay. Pennsylvania, the State from which 
Morris had been sent as a delegate, early de- 
clared in favor of the new experiment ; although, 
as Morris wrote Washington, there had been 
cause to " dread the cold and sour temper of 
the back counties, and still more the wicked 
industry of those who have long habituated 
themselves to live on the public, and cannot 
bear the idea of being removed from the power 
and profit of state government, which has 
been and still is the means of supporting them- 
selves, their families, and dependents, and (which 
perhaps is equally grateful) of depressing and 
humbling their political adversaries." In his 



FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 167 

own native state of New York the influences 
he thus describes were still more powerful, and 
it needed all Hamilton's wonderful genius to 
force a ratification of the Constitution in spite 
of the stupid selfishness of the Clintonian 
faction ; as it was, he was only barely success- 
ful, although backed by all the best and ablest 
leaders in the communit}^, — Jay, Livingstone, 
Schuyler, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Isaac 
Roosevelt, James Duane, and a host of others. 
About this time Morris came back to New 
York to live, having purchased the family 
estate at Morrisania from his elder brother, 
Staats Long Morris, the British general. He 
had for some time been engaged in various 
successful commercial ventures with his friend 
Robert Morris, including an East India voyage 
on a large scale, shipments of tobacco to 
France, and a share in iron works on the Del- 
aware River, and had become quite a rich man. 
As soon, as the war was ended, he had done 
what he could do to have the loyalists pardoned 
and reinstated in their fortunes ; thereby risk- 
ing his popularity not a little, as the general 
feeling against the Tories was bitter and male- 
volent in the highest degree, in curious con- 
trast to the good-will that so rapidly sprang up 
between the Unionists and ex-Confederates after 
the Civil War. 



168 GOU VERNE UR MORRIS. 

He also kept an eye on foreign politics, and 
one of liis letters to Jay curiously foreshadows 
the good-will generally felt by Americans of 
the present day towards Russia, running: "If 
her ladyship (the Czarina) would drive the 
Turk out of Europe, and demolish the Algerines 
and other piratical gentry, she will have done 
us much good for her own sake ; . . . but it is 
hardly possible the other powers will permit 
Russia to possess so wide a door into the Medi- 
terranean. I may be deceived, but I think 
England herself would oppose it. As an Amer- 
ican, it is my hearty wish that she may effect 
her schemes." 

Shortly after this it became necessary for 
him to sail for Europe on business. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 

After a hard winter passage of forty days' 
length Morris reached France, and arrived in 
Paris on February 3, 1789. He remained there 
a year on his private business ; but his pro- 
minence in America, and his intimate friend- 
ship with many distinguished Frenchmen, at 
once admitted him to the highest social and 
political circles, where his brilliant talents se- 
cured him immediate importance. 

The next nine years of his life were spent in 
Europe, and it was during this time that he un- 
knowingly rendered his especial and peculiar 
service to the pujalic. As an American states- 
man he has many rivals, and not a few supe- 
riors ; but as a penetrating observer and re- 
corder of contemporary events, he stands alone 
among the men of his time. He kept a full 
diary during his stay abroad, and was a most 
voluminous correspondent ; and his capacity 
for keen, shrewd observation, his truthfulness, 
his wonderful insight into character, his sense 



170 GOUVERNEUK MORRIS. 

of humor, and his power of graphic descrip- 
tion, all combine to make his comments on the 
chief men and events of the day a unique 
record of the inside history of Western Europe 
during the tremendous convulsions of the 
French Revolution. He is always an enter- 
taining and in all matters of fact a trust- 
worthy writer. His letters and diar}^ together 
form a real mine of wealth for the student 
either of the social life of the upper classes in 
France just before the outbreak, or of the 
events of the Revolution itself. 

In the first place, it must be premised that 
from the outset Morris was hostile to the spirit 
of the French Revolution, and his hostility grew 
in proportion to its excesses until at last it 
completely swallowed up his original antipathy 
to England, and made him regard France 
as normally our enemy, not our ally. This was 
perfectly natural, and indeed inevitable : in 
all really free countries, the best friends of 
freedom regarded the revolutionists, when they 
had fairly begun their bloody career, with 
horror and anger. It was only to oppressed, 
debased, and priest-ridden peoples that the 
French Revolution could come as the embodi- 
ment of libert}^ Compared to the freedom al- 
ready enjoyed by Americans, it was sheer 
tyranny of the most dreadful kind. 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 171 

Morris saw clearly that the popular party in 
France, composed in part of amiable vision- 
aries, theoretic philanthropists, and closet 
constitution-mongers, and in part of a brutal, 
sodden populace, maddened by the grinding 
wrongs of ages, knew not whither its own steps 
tended ; and he also saw that the then existing 
generation of Frenchmen were not, and never 
would be, fitted to use liberty aright. It is 
small matter for wonder that he could not see 
as clearly the good which lay behind the 
movement ; that he could not as readily fore- 
tell the real and great improvement it was 
finally to bring about, though only after a gener- 
ation of hideous convulsions. Even as it was, 
he discerned what was happening, and what 
was about to happen, more distinctly than did 
any one else. The wild friends of the French 
Revolution, especially in America, supported it 
blindly, with but a very slight notion of what 
it really signified. Keen though Morris's in- 
tellectual vision was, it was impossible for him 
to see what future lay beyond the quarter of a 
century of impending tumult. It did not lie 
within his powers to applaud the fiendish atroc- 
ities of the Red Terror for the sake of the prob- 
lematical good that would come to the next 
generation. To do so he would have needed 
the granite heart of a zealot, as well as the pro- 
phetic vision of a seer. 



172 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

The French Revolution was in its essence 
a struggle for the abolition of privilege, and 
for equality in civil rights. This Morris per- 
ceived, almost alone among the statesmen of 
his day; and he also perceived that most 
Frenchmen were willing to submit to any kind 
of government that would secure them the 
things for which they strove. As he wrote to 
Jefferson, when the republic was well under 
weigh : ** The great mass of the French nation 
is less solicitous to preserve the present order of 
things than to prevent the return of the ancient 
oppression, and of course would more readily 
submit to a pure despotism than to that kind 
of monarchy whose only limits were found in 
those noble, legal and clerical corps by which 
the people were alternately oppressed and in- 
sulted." To the down-trodden masses of con- 
tinental Europe the gift of civil rights and 
the removal of the tyranny of the privileged 
classes, even though accompanied by the rule 
of a directory, a consul, or an emperor, rep- 
resented an immense political advance ; but 
to the free people of England, and to the freer 
people of America, the change would have 
been wholly for the worse. 

Such being the case, Morris's attitude was 
natural and proper. There is no reason to 
question the sincerity of his statement in an- 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 173 

other letter, that "I do, from the bottom of my 
heart, T;vish well to this country [France]." 
Had the French people shown the least mod- 
eration or wisdom, he would have unhesitat- 
ingly sided with them against their oppressors. 
It must be kept in mind that he was not in- 
fluenced in the least in his course by the views 
of the upper classes with whom he mingled. On 
the contrary, when he first came to Europe, he 
distinctly lost popularity in some of the social 
circles in which he moved, because he was so 
much more conservative than his aristocratic 
friends, among whom the closet republican- 
ism of the philosophers was for the moment 
all the rage. He had no love for the French 
nobility, whose folly and ferocity caused the 
Revolution, and whose craven cowardice could 
not check it even before it had gathered head- 
way. Long afterwards he wrote of some of the 
emigres: ''The conversation of these gentle- 
men, who have the virtue and good fortune of 
their grandfathers to recommend them, leads 
me almost to forget the crimes of the French 
Revolution; and often the unforgiving temper 
and sanguinary wishes which they exhibit 
make me almost believe that the assertion of 
their enemies is true, namely, that it is success 
alone which has determined on whose side 
should be the crimes, and on whose the 



174 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

miseries," The truth of the last sentence was 
strikingly verified by the White Terror, even 
meaner, if less bloody, than the Red. Bourbon 
princes and Bourbon nobles were alike, and 
Morris only erred in not seeing that their de- 
struction was the condition precedent uj)on all 
progress. 

There was never another great struggle, in 
the end productive of good to mankind, where 
the tools and methods by which that end was 
won were so wholly vile as in the French 
Revolution. Alone among movements of the 
kind, it brought forth no leaders entitled to our 
respect ; none who were both great and good ; 
none even who were very great, save, at its 
beginning, strange, strong, crooked Mirabeau, 
and at its close the towering world-genius who 
sprang to power by its means, wielded it for his 
own selfish purposes, and dazzled all nations 
over the wide earth by the glory of his strength 
and splendor. 

We can hardly blame Morris for not appre- 
ciating a revolution whose immediate outcome 
was to be Napoleon's despotism, even though 
he failed to see all the good that would remotely 
spring therefrom. He considered, as he once 
wrote a friend, that " the true object of a great 
statesman is to give to any particular nation 
the kind of laws which is suitable to them, 



FJRST STAY IN FRANCE. 175 

and the best ^constitution whicli they are capa- 
ble of." There can be no sounder rule of states- 
manship; and none was more flagrantly broken 
by the amiable but incompetent political doc- 
trinaires of 1789. Thus the American, as a 
far-sighted statesman, despised the theorists 
who began the Revolution, and, as a humane 
and honorable man, abhorred the black-hearted 
wretches who carried it on. His view of the 
people among whom he found himself, as well 
as his statement of his own position, he himself 
has recorded : '-'- To fit people for a republic, 
as for any other form of government, a pre- 
vious education is necessary. ... In despotic 
governments the people, habituated to behold- 
ing everything bending beneath the weight of 
power, never possess tlmt power for a moment 
without abusing it. Slaves, driven to despair, 
take arms, execute vast vengeance, and then 
sink back to their former condition of slaves. 
In such societies the patriot, the melancholy 
patriot, sides with the despot, because anything 
is better than a wild and bloody confusion." 

So much for an outline of his views. His 
writings preserve them for us in detail on al- 
most every important question that came up 
during his stay in Europe ; couched, moreover, 
in telling, piquant sentences that leave room 
for hardly a dull line in either letters or diary. 



176 GODVERNEUR MORRIS. 

No sooner had he arrived in Paris than he 
sought out Jefferson, then the American minis- 
ter, and Lafayette. They engaged him to dine 
on the two following nights. He presented his 
various letters of introduction, and in a very 
few weeks, by his wit, tact, and ability, had 
made himself completely at home in what was 
by far the most brilliant and attractive — al- 
though also the most hopelessly unsound — 
fashionable society of any European capital. 
He got on equally well with fine ladies, philos- 
ophers, and statesmen ; was as much at his 
ease in the salons of the one as at the dinner- 
tables of the other ; and all the time observed 
and noted down, with the same humorous zest, 
the social peculiarities of his new friends as 
well as the tremendous march of political 
events. Indeed, it is difficult to know whether 
to set the higher value on his penetrating ob- 
servations concerning public affairs, or on his 
witty, light, half-satirical sketches of the men 
and women of the world with whom he was 
thrown in contact, told in his usual charming 
and effective style. No other American of 
note has left us writings half so humorous and 
amusing, filled, too, with information of the 
greatest value. 

Although his relations with Jefferson were 
at this time very f riendl}', yet his ideas on most 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 177 

subjects were completely at variance with those 
of the latter. He visited him very often ; and, 
after one of these occasions, jots down his opin- 
ion of his friend in his usual amusing vein : 
'' Call on Mr. Jefferson, and sit a good while. 
General conversation on character and politics. 
I think he does not form very just estimates of 
character, but rather assigns too many to the 
humble rank of fools; whereas in life the 
gradations are infinite, and each individual has 
his peculiarities of fort and feeble : " Not a 
bad protest against the dangers of sweeping 
generalization. Another time he records his 
judgment of Jefferson's ideas on public matters 
as follows : " He and I differ in our systems of 
politics. He, with all the leaders of liberty'- 
here, is desirous of annihilating distinctions 
of order. How far such views may be right 
respecting mankind in general is, I think, ex- 
tremely problematical. But with respect to 
this nation I am sure they are wrong, and can- 
not eventuate well." 

As soon as he began to go out in Parisian 
society, he was struck by the closet repub- 
licanism which it had become the fashion to 
affect. After his first visit to Lafayette, who 
received him with that warmth and frank, open- 
handed hospitality which he always extended to 
Americans, Morris writes : " Lafayette is f"ll 



178 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

of politics ; he appears to be too republican for 
the genius of his country." And again, when 
Lafayette showed him the draft of the cele- 
brated Declaration of Rights, he notes : " I 
gave him my opinions, and suggested several 
amendments tending to soften the high-colored 
expressions of freedom. It is not by sounding 
words that revolutions are produced." Else- 
where he writes that " the young nobility have 
brought themselves to an active faith in the 
natural equality of mankind, and spurn at 
everything which looks like restraint." Some 
of their number, however, he considered to be 
actuated by considerations more tangible than 
mere sentiment. He chronicles a dinner with 
some members of the National Assembly, 
where "one, a noble representing the Tiers^ is 
so vociferous against his own order, that I am 
convinced he means to rise by his eloquence, 
and finally will, I expect, vote with the opinion 
of the court, let that be what it may." The 
sentimental humanitarians — who always form 
a most pernicious body, with an influence for 
bad hardly surpassed by that of the profes- 
sionally criminal class — of course throve vigor- 
ously in an atmosphere where theories of mawk- 
ish benevolence went hand in hand with the 
habitual practice of vices too gross to name. 
Morris, in one of his letters, narrates an in- 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 179 

stance in point ; at the same time showing 
how this excess of watery philanthropy was, 
hke all the other movements of the French 
Revolution, but a violent and misguided reac- 
tion against former abuses of the opposite sort. 
The incident took place in Madame de Stael's 
salon. " The Count de Clermont Tonnerre, one 
of their best orators, read to us a very pathetic 
oration ; and the object was to show that no 
penalties are the legal compensations for crimes 
or injuries: the man who is hanged, having 
by that event paid his debt to society, ought 
not to be held in dishonor ; and in like manner 
he who has been condemned for seven years to 
be flogged in the galleys, should, when he has 
served out his apprenticeship, be received again 
into good company, as if nothing had happened. 
You smile ; but observe the extreme to which 
the matter was carried the other way. Dis- 
honoring thousands for the guilt of one has so 
shocked the public sentiment as to render this 
extreme fashionable. The oration was very 
fine, very sentimental, very pathetic, and the 
style harmonious. Shouts of applause and full 
approbation. When this was pretty well over, 
I told him that his speech was extremely elo- 
quent, but that his principles were not very 
solid. Universal surprise ! " 

At times he became rather weary of the con- 



180 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

stant discussion of politics, which had become 
the chief drawing-room topic. Among the ca- 
pacities of liis lively and erratic nature was the 
power of being intensely bored by anything 
dull or monotonous. He remarked testily that 
*' republicanism was absolutely a moral influ- 
enza, from which neither titles, places, nor even 
the diadem can guard the possessor." In a let- 
ter to a friend on a different subject be writes : 
" Apropos, — a term which my Lord Chester- 
field well observes we generally use to bring 
in what is not at all to the purpose, — apropos, 
then, I have here the strangest employment 
imaginable. A republican, and just as it were 
emerged from that assembly which has formed 
one of the most republican of all republican 
constitutions, I preach incessantly respect for 
the prince, attention to the rights of the 
nobles, and above all moderation, not only in 
the object, but also in the pursuit of it. All 
this you will say is none of my business ; but I 
consider France as the natural ally of my coun- 
try, and, of course, that we are interested in her 
prosperity ; besides, to say the truth, I love 
France." 

His hostility to the fashionable cult offended 
some of his best friends. The Lafayettes 
openly disapproved his sentiments. The 
Marquis told him that he was injuring the 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 181 

cause, because his sentiments were being con- 
tinually quoted against "the good party." 
Morris answered that he was opposed to 
democracy from a regard to liberty ; that the 
popular party were going straight to destruc- 
tion, and he would fain stop them if he could ; 
for their views respecting the nation were to- 
tally inconsistent with the materials of which 
it was composed, and the worst thing that 
could happen to them would be to have their 
wishes granted. Lafayette half admitted 
that this was true : " He tells me that he is 
sensible his party are mad, and tells them so, 
but is not the less determined to die with them. 
I tell him that I think it would be quite as well 
to bring them to their senses and live with 
them," — the last sentence showing the impa- 
tience with which the shrewd, fearless, prac- 
tical American at times regarded the dreamy 
inefficiency of his French associates. Madame 
de Lafayette was even more hostile than her hus- 
band to Morris's ideas. In commenting on her 
beliefs he says : " She is a very sensible woman, 
but has formed her ideas of government in a 
manner not suited, I think, either to the situa- 
tion, the circumstances, or the disposition of 
France." 

He was considered too much of an aristocrat 
in the salon of the Comtesse de Tesse, the 



182 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

resort of " republicans of the first feather ; " 
and at first was sometimes rather coldly re- 
ceived there. He felt, however, a most sincere 
friendship and regard for the comtesse, and 
thoroughly respected the earnestness with 
which she had for twenty years done what lay 
in her power to give her country greater 
liberty. She was a genuine enthusiast, and, 
when the National Assembly met, was filled 
with exultant hope for the future. The fero- 
cious outbreaks of the mob, and the crazy lust 
for blood shown by the people at large, startled 
her out of her faith, and shocked her into the 
sad belief that her life-long and painful labors 
had been wasted in the aid of a bad cause. 
Later in the year Morris writes : " I • find 
Madame de Tesse is become a convert to my 
principles. We have a gay conversation of some 
minutes on their affairs, in which I mingle 
sound maxims of government with that piquant 
legerete which this nation delights in. She 
insists that I dine with her at Versailles the 
next time I am there. We are vastly gracious, 
and all at once, in a serious tone, ' Mais at- 
tendez, madame, est-ce que je suis trop aris- 
tocrat ? ' To which she answers, with a smile of 
gentle humility, * Oh, mon Dieu, non ! ' " 

It is curious to notice how rapidly Morris's 
brilliant talents gave him a commanding posi- 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 183 

tion, stranger and guest though he was, among 
the most noted statesmen of France; how 
often he was consulted, and how widely his 
opinions were quoted. Moreover, his incisive 
truthfulness makes bis writings more valuable 
to the historian of his time than are those of 
any of his contemporaries, French, English, or 
American. Taine, in his great work on the 
Revolution, ranks him high among the small 
number of observers who have recorded clear 
and sound judgments of those years of confused, 
formless tumult and horror. 

All his views on French politics are very 
striking. As soon as he reached Paris, he was 
impressed by the unrest and desire for change 
prevailing everywhere, and wrote home : " I 
find on this side of the Atlantic a resem- 
blance to what I left on the other, — a nation 
which exists in hopes, prospects, and expec- 
tations ; the reverence for ancient establish- 
ments gone ; existing forms shaken to the very 
foundation ; and a new order of things about to 
take place, in which, perhaps, even the very 
names of all former institutions will be disre- 
garded." And again : " This country presents 
an astonishing spectacle to one who has col- 
lected his ideas from books and information half 
a dozen years old. Everything is a V Anglaise^ 
and a desire to imitate the English prevails 



184 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

alike in the cut of a coat and the form of a 
constitution. Like the English, too, all are 
engaged in parliamenteering ; and when we 
consider how novel this last business must be, 
I assure you the progress is far from contempt- 
ible," — a reference to Lafayette's electioneer- 
ing trip to Auvergne. The rapidity with 
which, in America, order had come out of chaos, 
while in France the reverse process had been 
going on, impressed him deeply ; as he says : 
" If an}^ new lesson were wanting to impress 
on our hearts a deep sense of the mutability 
of human affairs, the double contrast between 
France and America two years ago and at the 
present would surely furnish it." 

He saw at once that the revolutionists had 
it in their power to do about as they chose. 
" If there be any real vigor in the nation the 
prevailing party in the States-General may, if 
they please, overturn the monarchy itself, 
should the king commit his authority to a 
contest with them. The court is extremely 
feeble, and the manners are so extremely cor- 
rupt that they cannot succeed if there be any 
consistent opposition, unless the whole nation 
be equally depraved," 

He did not believe that the people would be 
able to profit by the revolution, or to use their 
opportunities aright. For the numerous class 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 185 

of patriots who felt a vague, tliough fervent, 
enthusiasm for liberty in the abstract, and who, 
without the slightest practical knowledge, were 
yet intent on having all their own pet theories 
put into practice, he felt profound scorn and 
contempt ; while he distrusted and despised the 
mass of Frenchmen, because of their frivolity 
and viciousness. He knew well that a pure 
theorist may often do as much damage to a 
country as the most corrupt traitor ; and very 
properly considered that in politics the fool is 
quite as obnoxious as the knave. He also 
realized that levity and the inability to look 
life seriously in the face, or to attend to the 
things worth doing, may render a man just as 
incompetent to fulfil the duties of citizenship 
as would actual viciousness. 

To the crazy theories of the constitution- 
makers and closet - republicans generally, he 
often alludes in his diary, and in his letters 
home. In one place he notes : " The literary 
people here, observing the abuses of the mo- 
narchical form, imagine that everything must go 
the better in proportion as it recedes from the 
present establishment, and in their closets they 
make men exactly suited to their systems ; but 
unluckily they are such men as exist nowhere 
else, and least of all in France." And he writes 
almost the same thing to Washington : " The 



186 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

middle party, who mean well, have unfortu- 
nately acquired their ideas of government from 
books, and are admirable fellows upon paper : 
but as it happens, somewhat unfortunate^, that 
the men who live in the world are very different 
from those who dwell in the heads of pliiloso- 
phers, it is not to be wondered at if the systems 
taken out of books are fit for nothing but to be 
put back into books again." And once more : 
" They have all that romantic spirit, and all 
those romantic ideas of government, which, 
happily for America, we were cured of before 
it was too late." He shows how they had 
never had tlie chance to gain wisdom through 
experience. "As they have hitherto felt se- 
verely the authority exercised in the name of 
their princes, every limitation of that power 
seems to them desirable. Never having felt 
the evils of too weak an executive, the disorders 
to be apprehended from anarchy make as yet 
no impression." Elsewhere he comments on 
their folly in trying to apply to their own 
necessities systems of government suited to 
totally different conditions ; and mentions his 
own attitude in the matter : " I have steadily 
combated the violence and excess of those per- 
sons who, either inspired with an entluisiastic 
love of freedom, or prompted by sinister designs, 
are disposed to drive everything to extremity. 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 187 

Our American example lias done them good ; 
but, like all novelties, liberty runs away with 
their discretion, if they have any. They want 
an American constitution with the exception of 
a King instead of a President, without reflecting 
that they have not American citizens to support 
that constitution. . . . Whoever desires to ap- 
ply in the practical science of government those 
rules and forms which prevail and succeed in a 
foreign country, must fall into the same ped- 
antrj' with our young scholars, just fresh from 
the university, who would fain bring everything 
to the Roman standard. . . . The scientific 
tailor who should cut after Grecian or Chinese 
models would not have many customers, either 
in London or Paris ; and those who look to 
America for their political forms are not unlike 
the tailors in Laputa, who, as Gulliver tells us, 
always take measures with a quadrant." 

He shows again and aojain his abidino; dis- 
ci o o 

trust and fear of the French character, as it was 
at that time, volatile, debauched, ferocious, and 
incapable of self-restraint. To Lafayette he 
insisted that the " extreme licentiousness " of 
the people rendered it indispensable that they 
should be kept under authority; and on another 
occasion told him " that the nation was used to 
being governed, and would have to be governed ; 
and that if he expected to lead them by their 



188 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

affections, lie would himself be the dupe." In 
writing to Washington he painted the outlook 
in colors that, though black indeed, were not a 
shade too dark. " The materials for a revolu- 
tion in this country are very indifferent. Every- 
body agrees that there is an utter prostration 
of morals; but this general proposition can never 
convey to an American mind the degree of de- 
pravity. It is not by any figure of rhetoric or 
force of language that the idea can be commu- 
nicated. A hundred anecdotes and a hundred 
thousand examples are required to show the 
extreme rottenness of every member. There 
are men and women who are greatly and emi- 
nently virtuous. I have the pleasure to num- 
ber many in my own acquaintance ; but they 
stand forward from a background deeply and 
darkly shaded. It is however from such crum- 
bling matter that the great edifice of freedom 
is to be erected here. Perhaps like the stratum 
of rock which is spread under the whole surface 
of their country, it may harden when exposed 
to the air ; but it seems quite as likely that it 
will fall and crush the builders. I ow^n to you 
that I am not without such apprehensions, for 
there is one fatal principle which pervades all 
ranks. It is a perfect indifference to the viola- 
tion of engagements. Inconstancy is so mingled 
in the blood, marrow, and very essence of this 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 189 

people, that when a man of high rank and im- 
portance laughs to-day at what he seriously 
asserted yesterday, it is considered as in the 
natural order of things. Consistency is a phe- 
nomenon. Judge, then, what would be the 
value of an association should such a thing be 
proposed and even adopted. The great mass of 
the common people have no religion but their 
priests, no law but their superiors, no morals 
but their interest. These are the creatures 
who, led by drunken curates, are now on the 
high road a la libertSy 

Morris and Washington wrote very freely to 
each other. In one of his letters, the latter 
gave an account of how well affairs were going 
in America (save in Rhode Island, the major- 
ity of whose people '' had long since bid adieu 
to every principle of honor, common sense, and 
honesty"), and then went on to discuss things 
in France. He expressed the opinion that, if 
the revolution went no farther than it had al- 
ready gone, France would become the most 
powerful and happy state in Europe; but he 
trembled lest, having triumphed in the first 
paroxysms, it might succumb to others still 
more violent that would be sure to follow. He 
feared equally the "licentiousness of the peo- 
ple " and the folly of the leaders, and doubted 
if the}^ possessed the requisite temperance, firm- 



190 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

ness, and foresight ; and if they did not, then 
he believed they would run from one extreme 
to another, and end with " a higher toned des- 
potism than the one which existed before." 

Morris answered him with his usual half- 
satiric humor : "Your sentiments on the revolu- 
tion here I believe to be perfectly just, because 
they perfectly accord with my own, and that is, 
you know, the only standard which Heaven has 
given us by which to judge," and went on to 
describe how the parties in France stood. " The 
king is in effect a prisoner in Paris and obeys 
entirely the National Assembly. This assembly 
may be divided into three parts: one, called 
the aristocrats^ consists of the high clergy, the 
members of the law (note, these are not the 
lawyers) and such of the nobility as think they 
ought to form a separate order. Another, which 
has no name, but which consists of all sorts of 
people, really friends to a good free govern- 
ment. The third is composed of what is here 
called the enragees^ that is, the madmen. These 
are the most numerous, and are of that class 
which in America is known by the name of 
pettifogging law^^ers; together with . . . those 
persons who in all revolutions throng to the 
standard of change because they are not well. 
This last party is in close alliance with the 
populace here, and they have already unhinged 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 191 

everything, and, according to custom on such 
occasions, the torrent rushes on irresistibly until 
it shall have wasted itself." The literati he 
pronounced to have no understanding whatever 
of the matters at issue, and as was natural to a 
shrewd observer educated in the intensely prac- 
tical school of American political life, he felt 
utter contempt for the wordy futility and wild 
theories of the French legislators. " For the 
rest, they discuss nothing in their assembly. 
One large half of the time is spent in hallooing 
and bawling." 

Washington and Morris were both so alarmed 
and indignant at the excesses committed by the 
revolutionists, and so frankly expressed their 
feelings, as to create an impression in some 
quarters that they were hostile to the revolution 
itself. The exact reverse was originally the 
case. They sympathized most warmly with the 
desire for freedom, and with the efforts made to 
attain it. Morris wrote to the President: "We 
have, I think, every reason to wish that the 
patriots may be successful. The generous wish 
that a free people must have to disseminate 
freedom, the grateful emotion which rejoices in 
the happiness of a benefactor, the interest we 
must feel as well in the liberty as in the power 
of this country, all conspire to make us far from 
indifferent spectators. I say that we have an 



192 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

intei'est in the liberty of France. The leaders 
here are our friends. Many of them have im- 
bibed their principles in America, and all have 
been fired by our example. Their opponents 
are b}^ no means rejoiced at the success of our 
revolution, and many of them are disposed to 
form connections of the strictest kind \vitli 
Great Britain." Both Washington and Morris 
vrould have been delighted to see liberty estab- 
lished in France; but they had no patience with 
the pursuit of the bloody chimera which the rev- 
olutionists dignified with that title. The one 
hoped for, and the other counseled, moderation 
among the friends of republican freedom, not 
because the}^ were opposed to it, but because 
they saw that it could onl}^ be gained and kept 
by self-restraint. They were, to say the least, 
perfectly excusable for believing that at that 
time some form of monarchy, whether under 
king, dictator, or emperor, was necessary to 
France. Every one agrees that there are cer- 
tain men wiser than their fellows; the only 
question is as to how these men can be best 
chosen out, and to this there can be no absolute 
answer. No mode will invariably give the 
best results ; and the one that will come near- 
est to doing so under given conditions will not 
work at all under others. Where the people 
are enlightened and moral they are themselves 



FIRST STAY IN FRANCE. 193 

the ones to choose their rulers ; and such a 
form of government is unquestionably the high- 
est of any, and the only one that a high-spirited 
and really free nation will tolerate ; but if they 
are corrupt and degraded, they are unfit for 
republicanism, and need to be under an entirely 
different system. The most genuine republican, 
if he has any common sense, does not believe in 
a democratic government for every race and in 
every age. 

Morris was a true republican, and an Ameri- 
can to the core. He was alike free from truck- 
ling subserviency to European opinion, — a 
degrading remnant of colonialism that unfor- 
tunately still lingers in certain limited social 
and literary circles, — and from the uneasy 
self-assertion that springs partly from sensitive 
vanity, and partly from a smothered doubt as 
to one's real position. Like most men of strong 
character, he had no taste for the *' cosmopoli- 
tanism " tliat so generally indicates a weak 
moral and mental make-up. He enjoyed his 
stay in Europe to the utmo-st, and was intimate 
with the most influential men and charming 
women of the time; but he was heartily glad to 
get back to America, refused to leave it again, 
and always insisted that it was the most pleas- 
ant of all places in which to live. While abroad 
he was simply a gentleman among gentlemen. 



194 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

He never intruded his political views ornational 
prejudices upon his European friends; but lie 
was not inclined to suffer any imputation on his 
country. Any question about America that 
was put in good faith, no matter how much ig- 
norance it displayed, he always answered good- 
humoredly ; and he gives in his Diary some 
amusing examples of such conversations. Once 
he was cross-examined by an inquisitive French 
nobleman, still in the stage of civilization which 
believes that no man can be paid to render a 
service to another, especially a small service, 
and yet retain his self-respect and continue to 
regard himself as the full political equal of his 
employer. One of this gentleman's sagacious 
inquiries was as to how a shoemaker could, in 
the pride of 4iis freedom, think himself equal to 
a king, and yet accept an order to make shoes ; 
to which Morris replied that he would accept it 
as a matter of business, and be glad of the 
chance to make them, since it lay in the line of 
his duty ; and that he would all the time con- 
sider himself at full liberty to criticise his vis- 
itor, or the king, or any one else, who lapsed 
from his own duty. After recording several 
queries of the same nature, and some rather 
abrupt answers, the Diary for that day closes 
rather caustically with the comment: "This 
manner of thinking and speaking, however, is 
too masculine for the climate I am now in." 



FIRST ST A Y IN FRANCE. 195 

In a letter to Washington Morris made one 
of his usual happy guesses — if forecasting the 
future by the aid of marvelous insight into hu- 
man character can properly be called a guess — 
as to what would happen to France: "It is very 
difficult to guess whereabouts the flock will set- 
tle when it flies so wild ; but as far as it is pos- 
sible to guess this (late) kingdom will be cast 
into a congeries of little democracies, laid out, 
not according to rivers, mountains, etc., but 
with the square and compass according to lati- 
tude and longitude," and adds that he thinks 
so much fermenting matter will soon give the 
nation " a kind of political colic." 

He rendered some services to Washington 
that did not come in the line of his public duty. 
One of these was to get him a watch, Wash- 
ington having written to have one purchased 
in Paris, of gold, " not a small, trifling, nor a 
finical ornamental one, but a watch well exe- 
cuted in point of workmanship, large and flat, 
with a plain, handsome key." Morris sent it 
to him by Jefferson, "with two copper keys and 
one golden one, and a box containing a spare 
spring and glasses." His next service to the 
great Virginian, or rather to his family, was of 
a different kind, and he records it with a smile 
at his own expense. "Goto M. Hudon's; he 
has been waiting for me a long time. I stand 



196 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

for his statue of General Washington, being the 
humble employment of a manikin. This is 
literally taking the advice of St. Paul, to be 
all things to all men." 

He corresponded with many men of note ; 
not the least among whom was the daring cor- 
sair, Paul Jones. The latter was very anxious 
to continue in the service of the people with 
whom he had cast in his lot, and in command 
of whose vessels he had reached fame. Morris 
was obliged to tell him that he did not believe 
an American navy would be created for some 
years to come, and advised him meanwhile to 
go into the service of the Russians, as he ex- 
pected there would soon be warm work on the 
Baltic; and even gave him a hint as to what 
would probably be the best plan of campaign. 
Paul Jones wanted to come to Paris ; but from 
this Morris dissuaded him. "A journey to this 
city can, I think, produce nothing but the ex- 
pense attending it; for neither pleasure nor 
profit can be expected here, by one of your 
profession in particular ; and, except that it is 
a more dangerous residence than many others, 
I know of nothing which may serve to you as 
an inducement." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LIFE IN PAEIS. 

Although Morris entered into the social 
life of Paris with all the zest natural to his 
pleasure-loving character, yet he was far too 
clear-headed to permit it to cast any glamour 
over him. Indeed, it is rather remarkable that 
a young provincial gentleman, from a raw, new, 
far-off country, should not have had his head 
turned by being made somewhat of a lion in 
what was then the foremost city of the civi- 
lized world. Instead of this happening, his 
notes show that he took a perfectly cool view 
of his new surroundings, and appreciated the 
over-civilized', aristocratic society, in which he 
found himself, quite at its true worth. He en- 
joyed the life of the salon very much, but it 
did not in the least awe or impress him ; and he 
was of too virile fibre, too essentially a man, 
to be long contented with it alone. He like- 
wise appreciated the fashionable men, and es- 
pecially the fashionable women, whom he met 
there ; but his amusing comments on them, as 



198 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

shrewd as they are humorous, prove how little 
he respected their philosophy, and how com- 
pletely indifferent he was to their claims to 
social preeminence. 

Much has been written about the pleasure- 
loving, highly cultured society of eighteenth- 
century France; but to a man like Morris, of 
real ability and with an element of sturdiness 
in his make-up, both the culture and knowl- 
edge looked a little like veneering ; the polish 
partook of effeminacy ; the pleasure so eagerly 
sought after could be called pleasure only by 
people of ignoble ambition ; and the life that 
was lived seemed narrow and petty, agreeable 
enough for a change, but dreary beyond meas- 
ure if followed too long. The authors, philoso- 
phers, and statesmen of the salon were rarely, 
almost never, men of real greatness ; their 
metal did not ring true ; they were shams, and 
the life of which they were a part was a sham. 
Not only w^as the existence hollow, unwhole- 
some, effeminate, but also in the end tedious : 
the silent, decorous dullness of life in the drea- 
riest country town is not more insufferable 
than, after a time, become the endless chatter, 
the small witticisms, the mock enthusiasms, and 
vapid affectations of an aristocratic society as 
artificial and unsound as that of the Parisian 
drawing-rooms in the last century. 



LIFE IN PARIS. 199 

But all this was delightful for a time, es- 
pecially to a man who had never seen any city 
larger than the overgrown villages of New 
York and Philadelphia. Morris thus sums up 
his first impressions in a letter to a friend: " A 
man in Paris lives in a sort of whirlwind, 
which turns him round so fast that he can see 
nothing. And as all men and things are in the 
same vertiginous condition, you can neither fix 
yourself nor your object for regular examina- 
tion. Hence the people of this metropolis are 
under the necessity of pronouncing their defini- 
tive judgment from the first glance; and being 
thus habituated to shoot flying, they have what 
sportsmen call a quick sight. Ex pede Her- 
culem. They know a wit by his snuff-box, a 
man of taste by his bow, and a statesman by 
the cut of his coat. It is true that, like other 
sportsmen, they sometimes miss ; but then, like 
other sportsmen too, they have a thousand ex- 
cuses besides the want of skill: the fault, you 
know, may be in the dog, or the bird, or the 
powder, or the flint, or even the gun, without 
mentioning the gunner." 

Among the most famous of the salons where 
he was fairly constant in his attendance was 
that of Madame de Stael. There was not a lit- 
tle contempt mixed with his regard for the 
renowned daughter of Necker. She amused 



200 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

him, however, and he thought well of her 
capacity, though in his Diary he says that he 
never in his life saw "such exuberant vanity " 
as she displayed about her father, Necker, — a 
very ordinary personage, whom the convulsions 
of the time had for a moment thrown forward 
as the most prominent man in France. By 
way of instance he mentions a couple of her 
remarks, one to the effect that a speech of 
Talleyrand on the church property was "ex- 
cellent, admirable, in short that there were two 
pages in it which were worthy of M. Necker ; " 
and another wherein she said that wisdom was 
a very rare quality, and that she knew of no 
one who possessed it in a superlative degree ex- 
cept her father. 

~ The first time he met her was after an ex- 
citing discussion in the assembly over the 
finances, which he describes at some length. 
Necker had introduced an absurd scheme for a 
loan. Mirabeau, who hated Necker, saw the 
futility of his plan, but was also aware that 
popular opinion was blindly in his favor, and 
that to oppose him would be ruinous ; so in a 
speech of " fine irony " he advocated passing 
Necker's proposed bill without change or dis- 
cussion, avowing that his object was to have 
the responsibility and glory thrown entirely on 
the proposer of the measure. He thus yielded 



LIFE IN PARIS. 201 

to the popular view, while at the same time he 
shouldered on Necker all the responsibility for 
a deed which it was evident would in the end 
ruin him. It was a not very patriotic move, 
although a good example of selfish political tac- 
tics, and Morris sneered bitterly at its adoption 
by the representatives of a people who prided 
themselves on being " the modern Athenians." 
To his surprise, however, even Madame de Stael 
took Mirabeau's action seriously ; she went into 
raptures over the wisdom of the assembly in 
doing just what Necker said, for "the only 
thing they could do was to comply with her 
father's wish, and there could be no doubt as 
to the success of her father's plans ! Bravo ! " 
With Morris she soon passed from politics 
to other subjects. " Presented to Madame de 
Stael as un homme d'' esprit^''' he writes, "she 
singles me out and makes a talk; asks if I 
have not written a book on the American Con- 
stitution. ' Non, madame, j'ai fait mon devoir 
en assistant a la formation de cette constitu- 
tion.' ' Mais, monsieur, votre conversation doit 
etre tres intdressante, car je vous entends cit^ 
de toute parti.' ' Ah, madame, je ne suis pas 
digne de cette eloge.' How I lost my leg? 
It was unfortunately not in the military service 
of my country. ' Monsieur, vous avez Fair tres 
imposant,' and this is accompanied with that 



202 COUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

look whicli, without being what Sir John Fal- 
staff calls the 'leer of invitation,' amounts to 
the same thing. . . . This leads us on, but in 
the midst of the chat arrive letters, one of 
which is from her lover, Narbonne, now with 
his regiment. It brings her to a little recollec- 
tion, which a little time will, I think, again 
banish, and a few interviews would stimulate 
her to try the experiment of her fascinations 
even on the native of a new world who has left 
one of his legs behind him." 

An entry in Morris's Diary previous to this 
conversation shows that he had no very high 
opinion of this same Monsieur de Narbonne : 
" He considers a civil war inevitable, and is 
about to join his regiment, being, as he says, in 
a conflict between the dictates of his duty and 
his conscience. I tell him that I know of no 
duty but that which conscience dictates. I pre- 
sume that his conscience will dictate to join the 
strongest side." 

Morris's surmises as to his fair friend's happy 
forgetfulness of her absent lover proved true : 
she soon became bent on a flirtation with the 
good-looking American stranger, and when he 
failed to make any advances she promptly 
made them herself; told him that she "rather 
invited than repelled those who were inclined 
to be attentive," and capped this exhibition of 



LIFE IN PARIS. 203 

modest feminine reserve by suggesting that 
"perhaps he might become an admh-er." Mor- 
ris dryly responded that it was not impossible, 
but that, as a previous condition, she must 
agree not to repel him, — which she instantly 
promised. Afterwards, at dinner, " we become 
engaged in an animated conversation, and she 
desires me to speak English, which her hus- 
band does not understand. In looking round 
the room, I observe in him very much emotion, 
and I tell her that he loves her distractedly, 
which she says she knows, and that it renders 
her miserable. ... I condole with her a little 
on her widowhood, the Chevalier de Narbonne 
being absent in Franche Comte. . . . She asks 
me if I continue to think she has a preference 
for Monsieur de Tonnerre. I reply only by 
observing that each of them has wit enough for 
one couple, and therefore I think they had bet- 
ter separate, and take each a partner who is iin 
pen hete. After dinner I seek a conversation 
with the husband, which relieves him. He in- 
veighs bitterly [poor, honest Swede] against 
the manners of the country, and the cruelty of 
alienating a wife's affection. I regret with him 
on general grounds that prostitution of morals 
which unfits them for good government, and 
convince him, I think, I shall not contribute to 
making him any more uncomfortable than he 



204 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

already is." Certainly, according to Morris's 
evidence, Madame de Stael's sensitive delicacy 
could only be truthfully portrayed by the un- 
fettered pen of a Smollett. 

He was an especial habitue of the salon of 
Madame de Flahaut, the friend of Talleyrand 
and Montesquieu. She was a perfectly character- 
istic type ; a clever, accomplished little woman, 
fond of writing romances, and a thorough-paced 
intriguante. She had innumerable enthusiasms, 
with perhaps a certain amount of sincerity in 
each, and was a more infatuated political 
schemer tlian any of her male friends. She 
was thoroughly conversant with the politics of 
both court and assembly ; her " precision and 
justness of thought was very uncommon in 
either sex," and, as time went on, made her a 
willing and useful helper in some of Morris's 
plans. Withal she was a mercenary, self-seek- 
ing little personage, bent on increasing her 
own fortune by the aid of her political friends. 
Once, when dining with Morris and Talley- 
rand, she told them in perfect good faith that, 
if the latter was made minister, " they must be 
sure to make a million for her." 

She was much flattered by the deference that 
Morris showed for her judgment, and in return 
let him into not a few state secrets. She and 
he together drew up a translation of the outline 



LIFE IN PARIS. 205 

for a constitution for France, which he had 
prepared, and through her it was forwarded to 
the king. Together with her two other inti- 
mates, Talleyrand and Montesquieu, they made 
just a party of four, often dining at her house ; 
and when her husband was sent to Spain, the 
dinners became more numerous than ever, some- 
times merely parties carrees, sometimes very 
large entertainments. Morris records that, 
small or large, they were invariably " excellent 
dinners, where the conversation was always ex- 
tremely gay." 

Once they planned out a ministry together, 
and it must be kept in mind that it was quite 
on the cards that their plan would be adopted. 
After disposing suitably of all the notabilities, 
some in stations at home, others in stations 
abroad, the scheming little lady turned to Mor- 
ris : " ' Enfin,' she says, ' mon ami, vous et moi 
nous gouvernerons la France.' It is an odd 
combination, but the kingdom is actually in 
much worse hands." 

This conversation occurred one morning 
when he had called to find madame at her 
toilet, with her dentist in attendance. It was 
a coarse age, for all the gilding; and the coarse- 
ness was ingrained in the fibre even of the most 
ultra sentimental. At first Morris felt perhaps 
a little surprised at the easy familiarity with 



206 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

which the various ladies whose friend he was 
admitted him to the privacy of boudoir and 
bedroom, and chronicles with some amusement 
the graceful indifference with which one* of 
them would say to him : " Monsieur Morris me 
permettra de faire ma toilette ? " But he was 
far from being a strait-laced man, — in fact, 
he was altogether too much the reverse, — and 
he soon grew habituated to these as well as to 
much worse customs. However, he notes that 
the different operations of the toilet " were car- 
ried on with an entire and astounding regard 
to modesty." 

Madame de Flahaut was a very charming 
member of the class who, neither toiling nor 
spinning, were supported in luxury by those 
who did both, and who died from want while 
so doing. At this very time, while France was 
rapidly drifting into bankruptc}^ the fraudulent 
pensions given to a horde of courtiers, titled 
placemen, well-born harlots and their offspring, 
reached the astounding total of two hundred 
and seventy odd millions of livres. The assem- 
bly passed a decree cutting away these pensions 
right and left, and thereby worked sad havoc 
in the gay society that nothing could render 
serious but immediate and pressing poverty, — 
not even the loom of the terror ahead, growing 
darker moment by moment. Calling on his 



LIFE IN PARIS. 207 

fascinating little friend immediately after the 
decree was publislied, Morris finds her "aw 
desespoir, and she intends to cry very loud, she 
says. . . . She has been in tears all day. Her 
pensions from Monsieur and the Comte d'Artois 
are stopped. On that from the king she re- 
ceives but three thousand francs, — and must 
therefore quit Paris. I try to console her, but 
it is impossible. Indeed, the stroke is severe ; 
for, with youth, beauty, wit, and every loveli- 
ness, she must quit all she loves, and pass her 
life with what she abhors." In the time of ad- 
versity Morris stood loyally by the friends who 
had treated him so kindly when the world was 
a merry one, and things went well with them. 
He helped them in every way possible ; his 
time and his purse were always at their service ; 
and he performed the difficult feat of giving pe- 
cuniary assistance with a tact and considerate 
delicacy that prevented the most sensitive from 
taking offense. 

He early became acquainted with the Duchess 
of Orleans, wife of Philippe Egalite, the vicious 
voluptuary of liberal leanings and clouded char- 
acter. He met her at the house of an old friend, 
Madame de Chastellux. At first he did not 
fancy her, and rather held himself aloof, being 
uncertain *' how he would get on with royalty." 
The duchess, however, was attracted by him, 



208 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

asked after him repeatedly, made tlieir mutual 
friends throw them together, and finally so man- 
aged that he became one of her constant visitors 
and attendants. This naturally flattered him, 
and he remained sincerely loyal to her always 
afterwards. She was particularly anxious that 
he should be interested in her son, then a boy, 
afterwards destined to become the citizen king, 
— not a bad man, but a mean one, and rather 
an unkingly king even for the nineteenth cen- 
tury, fertile though it has been in ignoble roy- 
alty. Morris's further dealings with this pre- 
cious youth will have to be considered hereafter. 
After his first interview he notes that the 
duchess was " handsome enough to punish the 
duke for his irregularities." He also mentioned 
that she still seemed in love with her husband. 
However, the lady was not averse to seeking 
a little sentimental consolation from her new 
friend, to whom she confided, in their after in- 
timacy, that she was weary at heart and not 
happy, and — a thoroughly French touch — that 
she had the " besoin d'etre aim^e." On the day 
they first met, while he is talking to her, " the 
widow of the late Duke of Orleans comes in, and 
at going away, according to custom, kisses the 
duchess. I observe that the ladies of Paris are 
very fond of each other; which gives rise to some 
observations from her royal highness on the 



LIFE IN PARIS. 209 

person who has just quitted the room, which 
show that the kiss does not always betoken great 
affection. In going away she is pleased to say 
that she is glad to have met me, and I believe 
her. The reason is that I dropped some ex- 
pressions and sentiments a little rough, which 
were agreeable because they contrasted with 
the palling polish she meets with everywhere. 
Hence I conclude that the less I have the honor 
of such good company the better ; for when the 
novelty ceases all is over, and I shall probably 
be worse than insipid." 

Nevertheless, the "good company" was deter- 
mined he should make one of their number. 
He was not very loath hiuiself, when he found 
he was in no danger of being patronized, — for 
anything like patronage was always particularly 
galling to his pride, which was of the kind that 
resents a tone of condescension more fiercely 
than an overt insult, — and he became a fast 
friend of the house of Orleans. The duchess 
made him her confidant ; unfolded to him her 
woes about the duke ; and once, when he was 
dining with her, complained to him bitterly of 
the duke's conduct in not paying her allowance 
regularly. She was in financial straits at the 
time; for, though she was allowed four hundred 
and fifty thousand livres a year, yet three hun- 
dred and fifty thousand were appropriated for 



210 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

the hoiise-servaiits, table, etc., — an item where- 
in her American friend, albeit not over-frugal, 
thought a very little economy would result in 
a great saving. 

His description of one of the days he spent 
at Raincy with the duchess and her friends, 
gives us not only a glimpse of the life of the 
great ladies and fine gentlemen of the day, but 
also a clear insight into the reasons why these 
same highly polished ladies and gentlemen had 
utterly lost their hold over the people whose 
God-given rulers they deemed themselves to be. 

Dejeuner a la fourchette was not served till 
noon, — Morris congratulating himself that he 
had taken a light breakfast earlier. " After 
breakfast we go to mass in the chapel. In the 
tribune above we have a bishop, an abb^, the 
duchess, her maids and some of their friends. 
Madame de Chastellux is below on her knees. 
We are amused above by a number of little 
tricks played off by Monsieur de Segur and 
Monsieur de Cabieres with a candle, which is 
put into the pockets of different gentlemen, tli^ 
bishop among the rest, and lighted, while they 
are otherwise engaged, (for there is a fire in 
the tribune,) to the great merriment of the 
spectators. Immoderate laughter is the conse- 
quence. The duchess preserves as much grav- 
ity as she can. This scene must be very edify- 



LIFE IN PARIS. 211 

ing to the domestics who are opposite to us, 
and the villagers who worship below." The 
afternoon's amusements were not to his taste. 
They all walked, which he found very hot ; 
then they got into bateaux, and the gentlemen 
rowed the ladies, which was still hotter ; and 
then there came more walking, so he was glad 
to get back to the chateau. The formal dinner 
was served after five ; the conversation thereat 
varied between the vicious and the frivolous. 
There was much bantering, well-bred in man- 
ner and excessively under-bred in matter, be- 
tween the different guests of both sexes, about 
the dubious episodes in their past careers, and 
the numerous shady spots in their respective 
characters. Epigrams and " epitaphs " were 
bandied about freely, some in verse, some not ; 
probably very amusing then, but their lustre 
sadly tarnished in the eyes of those who read 
them now. While they were dining, " a num- 
ber of persons surround the windows, doubtless 
from a high idea of the company, to whom they 
are obliged to look up at an awful distance. 
Oh, did they but know how trivial the conver- 
sation, how very trivial the characters, their 
respect would soon be changed to an emotion 
entirely different ! " 

This was but a month before the Ba«tile 
fell ; and yet, on the threshold of their hideous 



212 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

doom, the people who had most at stake were 
incapable not only of intelligent action to ward 
off their fate, but even of serious thought as to 
what their fate would be. The men — the 
nobles, the clerical dignitaries, and the princes 
of the blood — chose the church as a place 
wherein to cut antics that would have better 
befitted a pack of monkejs ; while the women, 
their wives and mistresses, exchanged with 
them impure jests at their own expense, rel- 
ished because of the truth on which the}^ rested. 
Brutes might still have held sway at least for 
a time ; but these were merely vicious triflers. 
They did not believe in their religion ; they 
did not believe in themselves ; they did not be- 
lieve in anything. They had no earnestness, 
no seriousness ; their sensibilities and enthusi- 
asms were alike affectations. There was still 
plenty of fire and purpose and furious energy 
in the hearts of the French people ; but these 
and all the other virile virtues lay not among 
the noblesse, but among the ranks of the com- 
mon herd beneath them, down-trodden, bloody 
in their wayward ferocity, but still capable of 
fierce, heroic devotion to an ideal in which 
they believed, and for which they would spill 
the blood of others, or pour out their own, with 
the proud waste of utter recklessness. 

Many of Morris's accounts of the literary life 



LIFE IN PARIS. 213 

of the salon read as if they were explanatory- 
notes to '' Les Precieuses Ridicules." There 
Avas a certain pretentiousness about it that made 
it a bit of a sham at the best ; and the feebler 
variety of salon, built on such a foundation, 
thus became that most despicable of things, an 
imitation of a pretense. At one of the dinners 
which Morris describes, the company was of a 
kind that would have done no discredit to an 
entertainment of the great social and literary 
light of Eatanswill. " Set off in great haste to 
dine with the Comtesse de R., on an invitation 
of a week's standing. Arrive at about a quar- 
ter past three, and find in the drawing-room 
some dirty linen and no fire. While a wait- 
ing-woman takes away one, a valet lights up 
the other. Three small sticks in a deep bed of 
ashes give no great expectation of heat. By 
the smoke, however, all doubts are removed 
respecting the existence of fire. To expel the 
smoke, a window is opened, and, the day being 
cold, I have the benefit of as fresh air as can 
reasonably be expected in so large a city. 

" Towards four o'clock the guests begin to 
assemble, and I begin to expect that, as madame 
is a poetess, I shall have the honor to dine with 
that exalted part of the species who devote 
themselves to the muses. In effect, the gentle- 
men begin to compliment their respective works; 



214 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

and, 'as regular hours cannot be expected in a 
house where the mistress is occupied more with 
the intellectual than the material world, I have 
a delightful prospect of a continuance of the 
scene. Towards five, madame steps in to an- 
nounce dinner, and the hungry poets advance 
to the charge. As they bring good appetites, 
they have certainly reason to praise the feast. 
And I console myself with the persuasion that 
for this day at least I shall escape an indigestion. 
A very narrow escape, too, for some rancid but- 
ter, of which the cook had been liberal, puts me 
in bodily fear. If the repast is not abundant, 
we have at least the consolation that there is 
no lack of conversation. Not being perfectly 
master of the language, most of the jests es- 
caped me. As for the rest of the company, 
each being employed either in saying a good 
thing, or else in studying one to say, it is no 
wonder if he cannot find time to applaud that 
of his neighbors. They all agree that we live 
in an age alike deficient in justice and in taste. 
Each finds in the fate of his own works numer- 
ous instances to justif}^ this censure. They tell 
me, to my great surprise, that the public now 
condemn theatrical compositions before they 
liave heard the first recital. And, to remove 
my doubts, the comtesse is so kind as to assure 
me that this rash decision has been made on 



LIFE IN PARIS. 216 

one of her own pieces. In pitying modern de- 
generacy, we rise from the table. 

"I take my leave immediately after the cof- 
fee, which by no means dishonors the prece- 
dent repast ; and madame informs me that on 
Tuesdays and Thursdays she is always at home, 
and will always be glad to see me. While I 
stammer out some return to the compliment, 
my heart, convinced of my unworthiness to par- 
take of such attic entertainments, makes me 
promise never again to occupy the place from 
which perhaps I had excluded a worthier per- 
sonage." 

Among Morris's other qualities, he was the 
first to develop that peculiarly American vein 
of humor which is especially fond of gravely 
pretending to believe without reserve some pre- 
posterously untrue assertion, — as throughout 
the above quotation. 

Though the society in which he was thrown 
interested him, he always regarded it with half- 
sarcastic amusement, and at times it bored him 
greatly. Meditating on the conversation in 
''this upper region of wits and graces," he 
concludes that '' the sententious style " is the 
one best fitted for it, and that in it " observa- 
tions with more of justice than splendor can- 
not amuse," and sums up by saying that " he 
could not please, because he was not sufficiently 
pleased." 



216 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

His comments upon the various distinguished 
men he met are always interesting, on account 
of the quick, accurate judgment of character 
which they show. It was this insight into the 
feelings and ideas alike of the leaders and of 
their followers which made his political predic- 
tions often so accurate. His judgment of many 
of his contemporaries comes marvelously near 
the cooler estimate of history. 

He was originally prejudiced in favor of the 
king, poor Louis XVI., and, believing him " to 
be an honest and good man, he sincerely wished 
him well," but he very soon began to despise 
him for his w^eakness. This quality was the 
exact one that under existing circumstances was 
absolutely fatal ; and Morris mentions it again 
and again, pronouncing the king " a well-mean- 
ing man, but extremely weak, without genius 
or education to show the way towards that 
good which he desires," and " a prince so weak 
that he can influence very little either by his 
presence or absence." Finally, in a letter to 
Washington, he gives a biting sketch of the 
unfortunate monarch. " If the reigning prince 
were not the small-beer character that he is, 
there can be but little doubt that, watching 
events and making a tolerable use of them, he 
Avould regain his authority ; but what will you 
have from a creature who, situated as he is, 



LIFE IN PARIS. 217 

eats and drinks, sleeps well and laughs, and is 
as merry a grig as lives ? The idea that they 
will give him some money, which he can econ- 
omize, and that he will have no trouble in gov- 
erning, contents him entirely. Poor man ! He 
little thinks how unstable is his situation. He 
is beloved, but it is not with the sort of love 
which a monarch should inspire. It is that 
kind of good-natured pity which one feels for a 
led captive. There is besides no possibility of 
serving him, for at the slightest show of opposi- 
tion he gives up everything and every person." 
Morris had too robust a mind to feel the least 
regard for mere amiability and good intentions 
when unaccompanied by any of the ruder, man- 
lier virtues. 

The Count d'Artois had " neither sense to 
counsel himself, nor to choose counsellors for 
himself, much less to counsel others." This 
gentleman, afterwards Charles X., stands as 
perhaps the most shining example of the mon- 
umental ineptitude of his royal house. His 
fellow Bourbon, the amiable Bomba of Naples, 
is his only equal for dull silliness, crass im- 
morality, and the lack of every manly or kingly 
virtue. Democracy has much to answer for, 
but after all it would be hard to find, even 
among the aldermen of New York and Chi- 
cago, men whose moral and mental shortcom- 



218 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

ings would put them lower than this royal 
couple. To our shame be it said, our system 
of popular government once let our greatest 
city fall under the control of Tweed ; but it 
would be rank injustice to that clever rogue to 
compare him with the two vicious dullards 
whom the opposite system permitted to tyran- 
nize at Paris and Naples. Moreover, in the 
end, we of the democracy not only overthrew 
the evil-doer who oppressed us, but also put 
him in prison ; and in the long run we have 
usually meted out the same justice to our lesser 
criminals. Government by manhood suffrage 
shows at its worst in large cities ; and yet even 
in these experience certainly does not show 
that a despotism works a whit better, or as 
well. 

Morris described the Count de Montmorin 
pithily, saying : " He has more understanding 
than people in general imagine, and he means 
well, very well, but he means it feebly." 

When Morris came to France, Necker was the 
most prominent man in the kingdom. He was 
a hard-working, well-meaning, conceited person, 
not in the least fitted for public affairs, a banker 
but not a financier, and affords a beautiful illus- 
tration of the utter futility of the popular belief 
that a good business man will necessarily be a 
good statesman. Accident had made him the 



LIFE IN PARIS. 219 

most conspicuous figure of the government, ad- 
mired and hated, but not looked down upon ; 
yet Morris saw through him at a glance. After 
their first meeting, he writes down in his diary: 
" He has the look and manner of the counting- 
house, and, being dressed in embroidered velvet, 
he contrasts strongly with his habiliments. 
His bow, his address, say, ' I am the man.' . . . 
If he is really a very great man, I am deceived ; 
and yet this is a rash judgment. If he is not a 
laborious man, I am also deceived." He soon 
saw that both the blame and the praise bestowed 
on him were out of all proportion to his conse- 
quence, and he wrote : " In their anguish [the 
nobles] curse Necker, who is in fact less the 
cause than the instrument of their sufferings. 
His popularity depends now more on the oppo- 
sition he meets with from one party than any 
serious regard of the other. It is the attempt 
to throw him down which saves him from fall- 
ing ; ... as it is, he must soon fall." To 
Washington he gave a fuller analysis of his 
character. "As to M. Necker, he is one of 
those people who has obtained a much greater 
reputation than he has any right to. . . . In 
his public administration he has always been 
honest and disinterested ; which proves well, I 
think, for his former private conduct, or else it 
proves that he has more vanity than cupidity. 



220 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

Be that as it may, an unspotted integrity as 
minister, and serving at his own expense in an 
ofl&ce which others seek for the purpose of en- 
riching themselves, have acquired for him very 
deservedly much confidence. Add to this that 
his writings on finance teem with that sort of 
sensibility which makes the fortune of modern 
romances, and which is exactly suited to this 
lively nation, who love to read but hate to think. 
Hence his reputation. He . . . [has not] the 
talents of a great minister. His education as a 
banker has taught him to make tight bargains, 
and put him upon his guard against projects. 
But though he understands man as a covetous 
creature, he does not understand mankind, — a 
defect which is remediless. He is utterly igno- 
rant of politics, by which I mean politics in the 
great sense, or that sublime science which em- 
braces for its object the happiness of mankind. 
Consequently he neither knows what constitu- 
tion to form, nor how to obtain the consent of 
others to such as he wishes. From the moment 
of convening the states-general, he has been 
afloat upon the wide ocean of incidents. But 
what is most extraordinary is that M. Necker 
is a very poor financier. This I know will 
sound like heresy in the ears of most people, 
but it is true. The plans he has proposed are 
feeble and inept." 



LIFE IN PARIS. 221 

A far more famous man, Talleyrand, then 
Bishop of AutuD, he also gauged correctly from 
the start, writing down that he appeared to be 
" a sly, cool, cunning, ambitious, and malicious 
man. I know not why conclusions so disadvan- 
tageous to him are formed in my mind, but so 
it is, and I cannot help it." He was afterwards 
obliged to work much in common with Talley- 
rand, for both took substantially the same view 
of public affairs in that crisis, and were working 
for a common end. Speaking of bis new ally's 
plan respecting church property, he says ; " He 
is bigoted to it, and the thing is well enough ; 
but the mode is not so well. He is attached to 
this as an author^ which is not a good sign for 
a man of business." And again he criticises 
Talleyrand's management of certain schemes 
for the finances, as showing a willingness " to 
sacrifice great objects for the sake of small 
ones ... an inverse ratio of moral proportion." 

Morris was fond of Lafayette, and appre- 
ciated highly his courage and keen sense of 
honor ; but he did not think much of his abil- 
ity, and became at times very impatient with 
his vanity and his impractical theories. Be- 
sides, he deemed him a man who was carried 
away by the current, and could neither stem 
nor guide it. " I have known my friend La- 
fayette now for many years, and can estimate 



222 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

at the just value both his words and actions. 
He means ill to no one, but he is very much 
below the business he has undertaken ; and if 
the sea runs high, he will be unable to hold the 
helm." And again, in writing to Washington : 
'' Unluckily he has given in to measures . . . 
which he does not heartily approve, and he 
heartily approves many things which expe- 
rience will demonstrate to be dangerous." 

The misshapen but mighty genius of Mira- 
beau he found more difficulty in estimating; 
he probably never rated it quite high enough. 
He naturally scorned a man of such degraded 
debauchery, who, having been one of the great 
inciters to revolution, had now become a subsi- 
dized ally of the court. He considered him 
"one of the most unprincipled scoundrels that 
ever lived," although of "superior talents," and 
"so profligate that he would disgrace any admin- 
istration," besides having so little principle as 
to make it unsafe to trust him. After his death 
he thus sums him up : " Vices both degrad- 
ing and detestable marked this extraordinary 
being. Completely prostitute, he sacrificed 
everything to the whim of the moment; — cupi- 
dus alieni prodigus sui ; venal, shameless ; and 
yet greatly virtuous when pushed by a prevail- 
ing impulse, but never truly virtuous, because 
never under the steady control of reason, nor 



LIFE IN PARIS. 223 

the firm authority of principle. I have seen 
this man, in the short space of two years, hissed, 
honored, hated, mourned. Enthusiasm has just 
now presented him gigantic. Time and reflec- 
tion will sink this stature." Even granting this 
to be wholly true, as it undoubtedly is in the 
main, it was nevertheless the fact that in Mira- 
beau alone lay the least hope of salvation for 
the French nation ; and Morris erred in strenu- 
ously opposing Lafayette's going into a ministry 
with him. Indeed, he seems in this case to have 
been blinded by prejudice, and certainly acted 
very inconsistently; for his advice, and the rea- 
sons he gave for it, were completely at variance 
with the rules he himself laid down to Lafay- 
ette, with even more cynicism than common 
sense, when the latter once made some objec- 
tions to certain proposed coadjutors of his : '' I 
state to him . . . that, as to the objections he 
has made on the score of morals in some, he 
must consider that men do not go into an ad- 
ministration as the direct road to heaven ; 
that they are prompted b}^ ambition or ava- 
rice, and therefore that the only way to secure 
the most virtuous is by making it their interest 
to act rightly." 

Morris thus despised the king, and distrusted 
the chief political leaders ; and, as he wrote 
Washington, he was soon convinced that there 



224 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

was an immense amount of corruption in the 
upper circles. The people at large he disliked 
even more than he did their advisers, and he 
had good grounds, too, as the following extract 
from his journal shows: "July 22d. After din- 
ner, walk a little under the arcade of the Palais 
Royal, waiting for my carriage. In this period 
the head and body of M. de Toulon are intro- 
duced in triumph, the head on a pike, the body 
dragged naked on the earth. Afterwards this 
horrible exhibition is carried through the differ- 
ent streets. His crime is, to have accepted a 
place in the ministry. This mutilated form of 
an old man of seventy-five is shown to his son- 
in-law, Berthier, the intendant of Paris ; and 
afterwards he also is put to death and cut to 
pieces, the populace carrying about the mangled 
fragments with a savage joy. Gracious God, 
what a people ! " 

He describes at length, and most interest- 
ingly, the famous opening of the states-general, 
" the beginning of the Revolution." He eyed 
this body even at the beginning with great dis- 
trust ; and he never tliought that any of the 
delegates showed especial capacity for grap- 
pling with the terrible dangers and difficulties 
by which they were encompassed. He com- 
ments on the extreme enthusiasm with which 
the king was greeted, and sympathizes strongly 



LIFE IN PARIS. 225 

with Marie Antoinette, who was treated with 
studied and insulting coldness. " She was ex- 
ceedingly hurt. I cannot help feeling the mor- 
tification which the poor queen meets with, for 
I see only the woman ; and it seems unmanly 
to treat a woman with unkindness. . . . Not 
one voice is heard to wish her well. I would 
certainly raise mine if I were a Frenchman; 
but I have no right to express a sentiment, and 
in vain solicit those who are near me to do it." 
... At last " the queen rises, and, to my great 
satisfaction, she hears, for the first time in 
several months, the sound of ''Vive la reine !^ 
She makes a low courtesy, and this produces a 
louder acclamation, and that a lower courtesy." 

The sympathy was for the woman, not the 
queen, the narrow-minded, absolute sovereign, 
the intriguer against popular government, whose 
policy was as heavily fraught with bale for the 
nation as was that of Robespierre himself. The 
king was more than competent to act as his own 
evil genius ; had he not been, Marie Antoinette 
would have amply filled the place. 

He characterized the carrying of " that dia- 
bolical castle," the Bastile, as " among the most 
extraordinary things I have met with." The 
day it took place he wrote in his journal, with 
an irony very modern in its flavor : " Yesterday 
it was the fashion at Versailles not to believe 



226 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

that there were any disturbances at Paris. I 
presume that this day's transactions will induce 
a conviction that all is not perfectly quiet." 

He used the Bastile as a text when, shortly 
afterwards, he read a brief lesson to a certain 
eminent painter. The latter belonged to that 
class of artists with pen or pencil (only too B 

plentiful in America at the present day) who 
always insist on devoting their energies to de- 
picting subjects worn threadbare by thousands 
of predecessors, instead of working in the new, 
broad fields, filled with picturesque material, 
opened to them by their own country and its 
history. " The painter shows us a piece he is 
now about for the king, taken from the ^neid : 
Venus restraining the arm which is raised in 
the temple of the Vestals to shed the blood of 
Helen. I tell him he had better paint the 
storm of the Bastile." 



CHAPTER IX. 

MISSION TO ENGLAND: BETUEN TO PAKIS. 

In March, 1790, Morris went to London, in 
obedience to a letter received from Washington 
appointing him private agent to the British 
government, and enclosing him the proper cre- 
dentials. 

Certain of the conditions of the treaty of 
peace between Great Britain and the United 
States, although entered into seven years before, 
were still unfulfilled. It had been stipulated 
that the British should give up the fortified 
frontier posts within our territory, and should 
pay for the negroes they had taken away from 
the Southern States during the war. They had 
done neither, and Morris was charged to find 
out what the intentions of the government were 
in the matter. He was also to find out whether 
there was a disposition to enter into a commer- 
cial treaty with the United States ; and finally, 
he was to sound them as to their sending a min- 
ister to America. 

On our part we had also failed to fulfil a por- 



228 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

tion of our treaty obligations, not having com- 
plied with the article which provided for the 
payment of debts due before the war to British 
merchants. Both sides had been to blame ; 
each, of course, blamed only the other. But 
now, when we were ready to perform our part, 
the British refused to perform theirs. 

As a consequence, Morris, although he spent 
most of the year in London, failed to accomplish 
anything. The feeling in England w^as hostile 
to America ; to the king, in particular, the very 
name was hateful. The English were still sore 
over their defeat, and hated us because we had 
been victors ; and yet they despised us also, for 
they thought we should be absolutely power- 
less except w^hen we were acting merely on the 
defensive. From the days of the Revolution 
till the days of the Civil War, the ruling classes 
of England were bitterly antagonistic to our 
nation ; they always saw with glee any check 
to our national well-being ; they wished us ill, 
and exulted in our misfortunes, while they 
sneered at our successes. The results have 
been lasting, and now work much more to their 
hurt than to ours. The past conduct of Eng- 
land certainly offers much excuse for, though 
it cannot in the least justify, the unreasonable 
and virulent anti-English feeling — that is, the 
feeling against Englishmen politically and na- 



MISSION TO ENGLAND. 229 

tionally, not socially or individually — whicli is 
so strong in many parts of our country where 
the native American blood is purest. 

The English ministry in 1790 probably had 
tbe general feeling of the nation behind them 
in their determination to injure us as much as 
they could ; at any rate, their aim seemed to 
be, as far as lay in them, to embitter our al- 
ready existing hostility to their empire. They 
not only refused to grant us any substantial 
justice, but they were inclined to inflict on us 
and on our representatives those petty insults 
which rankle longer than injuries. 

When it came to this point, however, Mor- 
ris was quite able to hold his own. He had a 
ready, biting tongue ; and, excepting Pitt and 
Fox, was intellectually superior to any of the 
public men whom he met. In social position, 
even as they understood it, he was their equal ; 
they could hardly look down on the brother of 
a British major-general, and a brother-in-law 
of the Duchess of Gordon. He was a man of 
rather fiery courage, and any attacks upon his 
country were not likely to be made twice in his 
presence. Besides, he never found the English 
congenial as friends or companions ; he could 
not sympathize, or indeed get along well, with 
them. This distaste for their society he always 
retained, and though he afterwards grew to re- 



230 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

spect them, and to be their warm partisan po- 
litically, he was at this time much more friendly 
to France, and was even helping the French 
ministers concoct a scheme of warfare against 
their neighbor. To his bright, impatient tem- 
perament, the English awkwardness seemed to 
be an insuperable obstacle to bringing people 
together "as in other countries." He satirized 
the English drawing-rooms, "where the arrange- 
ment of the company was stiff and formal, the 
ladies all ranged in battalia on one side of the 
room ; " and remarked " that the French, having 
no liberty in their government, have compensa- 
ted to themselves that misfortune by bestowing 
a great deal upon society. But that, I fear, in 
England, is all confined to the House of Com- 
mons." Years afterwards he wrote to a friend 
abroad : "Have you reflected that there is more 
of real society in one week at [a Continental 
-watering-place] than in a London year ? Recol- 
lect that a tedious morning, a great dinner, a 
boozy afternoon, and dull evening make the 
sum total of English life. It is admirable for 
young men who shoot, hunt, drink, — but for 
us ! How are we to dispose of ourselves ? No. 
Were I to give you a rendezvous in Europe, it 
should be on the continent. I respect, as you 
know, the English nation highly, and love many 
individuals among them, but I do not love their 



MISSION TO ENGLAND. 231 

Times have changed, and the man- 
ners of the Islanders with them. Exactly as 
the " rude Carinthian boor " has become the 
most polished of mortals, so, after a like trans- 
formation, English society is now perhaps the 
pleasantest and most interesting in Europe. 
Were Morris alive to-day, he would probably 
respect the English as much as he ever did, 
and like them a good deal more ; and, while he 
might well have his preference for his own 
country confirmed, yet, if he had to go abroad, 
it is hard to believe that he would now pass by 
London in favor of any continental capital or 
watering-place. 

In acknowledging Washington's letter of ap- 
pointment, Morris wrote that he did not expect 
much difficulty, save from the king himself, 
who was very obstinate, and bore a personal 
dislike to his former subjects. But his inter- 
views with the minister of foreign affairs, the 
Duke of Leeds, soon undeceived him. The 
duke met him with all the little tricks of de- 
lay, and evasion, known to old-fashioned diplo- 
macy ; tricks that are always greatly relished 
by men of moderate ability, and which are suc- 
cessful enough where the game is not very im- 
portant, as in the present instance, but are 
nearly useless when the stakes are high and the 
adversary determined. The worthy nobleman 



232 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

was profuse in expressions of general good-will, 
and vague to a degree in his answers to every 
concrete question ; affected to misunderstand 
what was asked of him, and, when be could not 
do this " slumbered profoundly " for weeks be- 
fore making his reply. Morris wrote that *'his 
explanatory comments were more unintelligible 
than his texts," and was delighted when he 
heard that he might be replaced by Lord 
Hawksbury ; for the latter, although strongly 
anti-American, " would at least be an efficient 
minister," whereas the former was " evidently 
afraid of committing himself by saying or doing 
anything positive." He soon concluded that 
Great Britain was so uncertain as to how mat- 
ters were going in Europe that she wished to 
keep us in a similar state of suspense. She bad 
recovered with marvelous rapidity from the 
effects of the great war ; she was felt on all 
sides to hold a position of commanding power ; 
this she knew well, and so felt like driving a 
very hard bargain with any nation, especially 
with a weak one that she hated. It was par- 
ticularly difficult to form a commercial treat3\ 
There were very many Englishmen who agreed 
with a Mr. Irwin, " a mighty sour sort of crea- 
ture," who assured Morris that he was utterly 
opposed to all x^merican trade in grain, and 
that he wished to oblige the British people, by 



MISSION TO ENGLAND. 233 

the force of starvation, to raise enougli corn for 
their own consumption. Fox told Mori'is that 
he and Burke were about the only two men left 
who believed that Americans should be allowed 
to trade in their own bottoms to the British 
Islands; and he also informed him that Pitt 
was not hostile to America, but simply indiffer- 
ent, being absorbed in European matters, and 
allowing his colleagues free hands. 

Becoming impatient at the long - continued 
delay, Morris finally wrote, very courteously 
but very firmly, demanding some sort of answer, 
and this produced a momentary activity, and 
assurances that he was under a misapprehen- 
sion as to the delay, etc. The subject of the 
impressment of American sailors into British 
men-of-war, — a matter of chronic complaint 
throughout our first forty years of national life, 
— now came up ; and he remarked to the 
Duke of Leeds, with a pithy irony that should 
have made the saying famous : " I believe, my 
lord, that this is the only instance in which we 
are not treated as aliens." He proposed a plan 
which would have at least partially obviated 
the difficulties in the way of a settlement of 
the matter, but the duke would do nothing. 
Neither would he come to any agreement in 
reference to the exchange of ministers between 
the two countries. 



234 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

Then came an interview with Pitt, and Mor- 
ris, seeing how matters stood, now spoke out 
perfectly clearly. In answer to the accusations 
about our failure wholly to perforin certain stip- 
ulations of the treaty, after reciting the coun- 
ter accusations of the Americans, he brushed 
them all aside with the remark : " But, sir, 
what I have said tends to show that these com- 
plaints and inquiries are excellent if the parties 
mean to keep asunder ; if they wish to come to- 
gether, all such matters should be kept out of 
sight." He showed that the House of Repre- 
sentatives, in a friendly spirit, had recently de- 
cided against laying extraordinary restrictions 
on British vessels in our ports. " Mr. Pitt said 
that, instead of restrictions, we ought to give 
them particular privileges, in return for those 
we enjoy here. I assured him that I knew of 
none except that of being impressed, a privilege 
which of all others we least wished to partake 
of. . . . Mr. Pitt said seriously that they had 
certainly evinced good-will to us by what they 
had done respecting our commerce. I replied 
therefore, with like seriousness, that their regu- 
lations had been dictated with a view to their 
own interests ; and therefore, as we felt no fa- 
vor, we owed no obligation." Morris realized 
thoroughly that they were keeping matters in 
suspense because their behavior would depend 



MISSION TO ENGLAND. 235 

upon the contingencies of war or peace with the 
neighboring powers ; he wished to show that, 
if they acted thus, we would also bide our time 
till the moment came to strike a telling blow ; 
and accordingly he ended by telling Pitt, with 
straightforward directness, a truth that was 
also a threat : " We do not think it worth 
while to go to war with you for the [frontier] 
forts ; but we know our rights, and will avail 
ourselves of them when time and circumstances 
may suit." 

After this conversation he became convinced 
that we should wait until England herself felt 
the necessity of a treaty before trying to nego- 
tiate one. He wrote Washington " that those 
who, pursuing the interests of Great Britain, 
wish to be on the best terms with America, are 
outnumbered by those whose sour prejudice 
and hot resentment render them averse to any 
intercourse except that which may immediately 
subserve a selfish policy. These men do not yet 
know America. Perhaps America does not 
yet know herself. . . . We are yet in but the 
seeding-time of national prosperity, and it will 
be well not to mortgage the crop before it is 
gathered. . . . England will not, I am per- 
suaded, enter into a treaty with us unless we 
give for it more than it is worth now, and in- 
finitely more than it will be worth hereafter. 
A present bargain would be that of a young 



236 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

heir with an old usurer. . . . But, should war 
break out [with a European power], the anti- 
American party here will agree to any terms ; 
for it is more the taste of the medicine which 
they nauseate than the quantity of the dose." 

Accordingly all negotiations were broken off. 
In America his enemies blamed Morris for this 
failure. They asserted that his haughty man- 
ners and proud bearing had made him unpopu- 
lar with the ministers, and that his consorting 
with members of the opposition had still further 
damaged his cause. The last assertion was 
wholly untrue ; for he had barely more than 
met Fox and his associates. But on a third 
point there was genuine reason for dissatisfac- 
tion. Morris had contided his purpose to the 
French minister at London, M. de la Luzerne, 
doing so because he trusted to the latter's honor, 
and did not wish to seem to take any steps un- 
known to our ally ; and he was in all probability 
also influenced by his constant association and 
intimacy with the French leaders. Luzerne, 
however, promptly used the information for his 
own purposes, letting the English ministers 
know that he was acquainted with Morris's ob- 
jects, and thus increasing the weight of France 
by making it appear that America acted only 
with her consent and advice. The affair curi- 
ously illustrates Jay's wisdom eight years be- 



RETURN TO PARIS. 237 

fore, when he insisted on keeping Luzerne's su- 
perior at that time, Vergennes, in the dark as 
to our course during the peace negotiations. 
However, it is not at all likely that Mr. Pitt 
or the Duke of Leeds were influenced in their 
course by anything Luzerne said. 

Leaving London, Morris made a rapid trip 
through the Netherlands and up tbe Rhine. 
His journals, besides the usual comments on the 
inns, the bad roads, poor horses, sulky postil- 
ions, and the like, are filled with very interest- 
ing observations on the character of the country 
through which he passed, its soil and inhabit- 
ants, and the indications they afforded of the 
national resources. He liked to associate with 
people of every kind, and he was intensely fond 
of natural scenery ; but, what seems rather 
surprising in a man of his culture, he appar- 
ently cared very little for the great cathedrals, 
the picture galleries, and the works of art 
for which the old towns he visited were so 
famous. 

He reached Paris at the end of November, 
but was almost immediately called to London 
again, returning in January, 1791, and making 
three or four similar trips in the course of the 
year. His own business affairs took up a great 
deal of his time. He was engaged in very 
many different operations, out of which he 



238 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

made a great deal of money, being a shrewd 
business man with a strong dash of the specu- 
lator. He had to prosecute a suit against the 
farmers-general of France for a large quantity 
of tobacco shipped them by contract ; and he 
gives a very amusing description of the visits 
he made to the judges before whom the case 
was to be tried. Their occupations were cer- 
tainly various, being those of a farrier, a gold- 
smith, a grocer, a currier, a woolen draper, and 
a bookseller respectively. As a sample of his 
efforts, take the following : " Return home and 
dine. At five resume my visits to my judges, 
and first wait upon the honorable M. Gillet, the 
grocer, who is in a little cuddy adjoining his 
shop, at cards. He assures me that the court 
are impartial, and alike uninfluenced by farmers, 
receivers, and grand seigneurs ; that they are 
generally of the same opinion ; that he will do 
everything in his power; and the like. De 
V autre cote, perfect confidence in the ability 
and integrity of the court. Wish only to bring 
the cause to such a point as that I may have 
the honor to present a memorial. Am vastly 
sorry to have been guilty of an intrusion upon 
the amusements of his leisure hours. Hope he 
will excuse the solicitude of a stranger, and pa- 
tronize a claim of such evident justice. The 
whole goes off very well, though I with difficulty 



RETURN TO PARIS. 239 

restrain my risible faculties. ... A disagreea- 
ble scene, the ridicule of which is so strongly- 
painted to my own eyes that I cannot forbear 
laughing." 

He also contracted to deliver Necker twenty 
thousand barrels of flour for the relief of Paris; 
wherein, by the way, he lost heavily. He took 
part in sundry shipping operations. Perhaps the 
most lucrative business in which he was engaged 
was in negotiating the sale of wild lands in 
America. He even made many efforts to buy 
the Virginian and Pennsylvanian domains of 
the Fairfaxes and the Penns. On behalf of a 
syndicate, he endeavored to purchase the Amer- 
ican debts to France and Spain; these being 
purely speculative efforts, as it was supposed 
that the debts could be obtained at quite a low 
figure, while, under the new Constitution, the 
United States would certainly soon make ar- 
rangements for paying them oft'. These vari- 
ous operations entailed a wonderful amount of 
downright hard work ; yet all the while he re- 
mained not only a close observer of French poli- 
tics, but, to a certain extent, even an actor in 
them. 

He called upon Lafayette as soon as he was 
again established in Paris, after his mission to 
London. He saw that affairs had advanced to 
such a pitch in France that " it was no longer 



240 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

a question of libert}^ but simply who shall be 
master." He had no patience with those who 
wished the king to place himself, as they phrased 
it, at the head of the Revolution, remarking : 
" The trade of a revolutionist appears to me 
a hard one for a prince." What with the folly 
of one side and the madness of the other, things 
were going to pieces very rapidly. At one of 
his old haunts, the club, the " sentiment aristo- 
cratique " had made great headway : one of his 
friends, De Moustin, now in favor w^ith the king 
and queen, was " as usual on the high ropes of 
roj^al prerogative." Lafayette, however, was 
still wedded to his theories, and did not appear 
over-glad to see his American friend, all* whose 
ideas and habits of thought were so opposed to 
his own ; while madame was still cooler in her 
reception. Morris, nothing daunted, talked to 
his friend very frankly and seriously. He told 
liim that the time had come when all good citi- 
zens would be obliged, simply from lack of 
choice, to cling to the throne ; that the execu- 
tive must be strengthened, and good and able 
men put into the council. He pronounced the 
'' thing called a constitution " good for nothing, 
and showed that the National Assembly was 
rapidly falling into contempt. He pointed out, 
for the hundredth time, that each country need- 
ed to have its own form of government ; that an 



RETURN TO PARIS. 241 

American constitution would not do for France, 
for the latter required an even higher-toned 
system than that of England ; and that, above 
all things, France needed stability. He gave 
the reasons for his advice clearly and forcibly ; 
but poor Lafayette flinched from it, and could 
not be persuaded to take any effectual step. 

It is impossible to read Morris's shrewd com- 
ments on the events of the day, and his plans 
in reference to them, without wondering that 
France herself should at the crisis have failed 
to produce any statesmen to be compared with 
him for force, insight, and readiness to do what 
was practically best under the circumstances ; 
but her past history for generations had been 
such as to make it out of the question for her 
to bring forth such men as the founders of our 
own government. Warriors, lawgivers, and 
diplomats she had in abundance. Statesmen 
who would be both hard-headed and true- 
hearted, who would be wise and yet unselfish, 
who would enact laws for a free people that 
would make that people freer still, and yet hin- 
der them from doing wrong to their neighbors, 
— statesmen of this order she neither had nor 
could have had. Indeed, had there been such, 
it may well be doubted if they could have 
served France. With a people who made up in 
fickle ferocity what they lacked in self-restraint, 



242 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

and a king too timid and short-sighted to turn 
any crisis to advantage, the French statesmen, 
even had they been as wise as they were foolish, 
would hardly have been able to arrest or alter 
the march of events. Morris said bitterly that 
France was the country where everything was 
talked of, and where hardly anything was un- 
derstood. 

He told Lafayette that he thought the only 
hope of the kingdom lay in a foreign war ; it is 
possible that the idea may have been suggested 
to him by Lafayette's naive remark that he be- 
lieved his troops would readily follow him into 
action, but that they would not mount guard 
when it rained. Morris not only constantly 
urged the French ministers to make war, but 
actually drew up a plan of campaign for them. 
He believed it would turn the popular ardor, 
now constantly inflamed against the aristocrats, 
into a new channel, and that " there was no 
word perhaps in the dictionary which would 
take the place of aristocrat so readily as ^n- 
glais." In proof of the wisdom of his prop- 
ositions he stated, with absolute truthfulness : 
" If Britain had declared war in 1774 against 
the house of Bourbon, the now United States 
would have bled freely in her cause." He was 
disgnsted with the littleness of the men who, 
appalled at their own surroundings, and unable 



RETURN TO PARIS. 243 

to make shift even for the moment, found them- 
selves thrown by chance to the helm, and face 
to face with the wildest storm that had ever 
shaken a civilized government. Speaking of 
one of the new ministers, he remarked: "They 
say he is a good kind of man, which is saying 
very little ; " and again, " You want just now 
gvreat men, to pursue great measures." Another 
time, in advising a war, — a war of men, not of 
money, — and speaking of the efforts made by 
the neighboring powers against the revolution- 
ists in Flanders, he told his French friends that 
they must either suffer for or with their allies ; 
and that the latter was at once the noblest and 
the safest course. 

In a letter to Washington he drew a picture 
of the chaos as it really was, and at the same 
time, with wonderful clear-sightedness, showed 
the great good which the change was eventually 
to bring to the mass of the people. Remember- 
ing how bitter Morris's feelings were against 
the revolutionists, it is extraordinary that they 
did not blind him to the good that would in 
the long run result from their movement. Not 
another statesman would have been able to set 
forth so clearly and temperately the benefits 
that would finally come from the convulsions he 
saw around him, although he rightly believed 
that these benefits would be even greater could 



244 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

the hideous excesses of the revohitionlsts be 
forthwith stopped and punished. 

His letter runs : " This unhappy country, 
bewildered in the pursuit of metaphysical whim- 
sies, presents to our moral view a mighty ruin. 
. . . The sovereign, humbled to the level of a 
beggar without pitj^, without resources, without 
authority, without a friend. The Assembl}^, at 
once a master and a slave, new in power,^wild 
in theory, raw in practice. It engrosses all func- 
tions, though incapable of exercising any, and 
has taken from this fierce, ferocious people every 
restraint of religion and of respect." Where 
this would all end, or what sum of misery 
would be necessary to change the popular will 
and awaken the popular heart, he could not say. 
A glorious opportunity had been lost, and for 
the time being the Revolution had failed. Yet, 
he went on to say, in the consequences flowing 
from it he was confident he could see the foun- 
dation of future prosperity. For among these 
consequences were, — 1. The abolition of the dif- 
ferent rights and privileges which had formerly 
kept the various provinces asunder ; 2. The 
abolition of feudal tyranny, by which the tenure 
of real property would be simplified, and the 
rent no longer be dependent upon idle vanity, 
capricious taste, or sullen pride ; 3. The throw- 
ing into the circle of industry those vast posses- 



RETURN TO PARIS. 245 

sions formerly held by the clergy in mortmain, 
wealth conferred upon them as wages for their 
idleness ; 4. The destruction of the system of 
venal jurisprudence which had established the 
pride and privileges of the few on the misery 
and degradation of the general mass ; 5. Above 
all, the establishment of the principles of true 
liberty, which would remain as solid facts after 
the superstructure of metaphysical froth and 
vapor should have been blown away. Finally, 
" from the chaos of opinion and the conflict of 
its jarring elements a new order will at length 
arise, which, though in some degree the child of 
chance, may not be less productive of human 
happiness than the forethought provisions of 
human speculation." Not one other contem- 
porary statesman could have begun to give so 
just an estimate of the good the Revolution 
would accomplish ; no other could have seen so 
deeply into its ultimate results, while also 
keenly conscious of the dreadful evil tlirough 
which these results were being worked out. 

The social life of Paris still went on, though 
with ever less of gayety, as the gloom gathered 
round about. Going with Madame de Chas- 
teUux to dine with the Duchess of Orleans, 
Morris was told by her royal highness that she 
was " ruined," tliat is, that her income was 
reduced from four hundred and fifty thousand 



246 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

to two hundred thousand Uvres a year, so that 
she could no longer give him good dinners; but 
if he would come and fast with her, she would 
be glad to see him. The poor lady was yet to 
learn by bitter experience that real ruin was 
something very different from the loss of half 
of an enormous income. 

On another occasion he breakfasted with the 
duchess, and was introduced to her father, with 
whom he agreed to dine. After breakfast she 
went out walking with him till nearl}^ dinner- 
time, and gave him the full history of her breach 
with her husband, Egalite, showing the letters 
that had passed between them, complaining of 
his numerous misdeeds, and assuring Morris 
that what the world had attributed to fondness 
for her worthless spouse was merely discretion; 
that she had hoped to bring him to a decent 
and orderly behavior, but had finally made up 
her mind that he could only be governed by 
fear. 

Now and then he indulges in a quiet laugh 
at the absurd pretensions and exaggerated esti- 
mates of each other still affected by some of 
the frequenters of the various salons. " Diue 
with Madame de Stael. The Abbe Sieyes is 
liere, and descants with much self-sufficiency 
on government, despising all that has been said 
or sung on that subject before him ; and madame 



RETURN TO PARIS. 247 

says that his writings and opinions will form 
in politics a new era, like those of Newton in 
physics." 

After dining with Marmontel, he notes in his 
Diary that his host " thinks soundly," — rare 
praise for him to bestow on any of the French 
statesmen of the time. He records a hon mot 
of Talleyrand's. When the Assembly had de- 
clared war on the emperor conditionally upon 
the hitter's failing to beg pardon before a certain 
date, the little bishop remarked that "the na- 
tion was U7ie parvenue^ and of course insolent." 
At the British ambassador's he met the famous 
Colonel Tarleton, who did not know his nation- 
ality, and amused him greatly by descanting at 
length, on the American war. 

He was very fond of the theatre, especially 
of the Comddie Fran^aise, where Preville, whom 
he greatly admired, was acting in Moliere's 
*' Amphitryon." Many of the plays, whose plots 
presented in any way analogies to what was ac- 
tually happening in the political world, raised 
great excitement among the spectators. Going 
to see *' Brutus " acted, he records that the noise 
and altercations were tremendous, but that 
finally the democrats in the parterre got the 
upper hand by sheer lusty roaring, which they 
kept up for a quarter of an hour at a time, and, 
at the conclusion of the piece, insisted upon the 



248 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

bust of Voltaire being crowned and placed on 
the stage. Soon afterwards a tragedy called 
"Charles Neuf," founded on the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew, was put on the stage, to help the 
Assembly in their crusade against the clergy ; 
he deemed it a very extraordinary j^iece to be 
represented in a Catholic country, and thought 
that it would give a fatal blow to the Catholic 
religion. 

The priesthood, high and low, he disliked 
more than any other set of men ; all his com- 
ments on them show his contempt. The high 
prelates lie especially objected to. The Bishop 
of Orleans he considered to be a luxurious old 
gentleman,"of the kind whose sincerest prayer 
is for the fruit of good living, one who evidently 
thought it more important to speak than to 
speak the truths The leader of the great church 
dignitaries, in their fight for their rich benefices, 
was the Abbe Maury, who, Morris writes, " is 
a man who looks like a downright ecclesiastical 
scoundrel." He met him in Madame de Na- 
daillac's salon, where were "a party of fierce 
aristocrats. They have the word ' valet ' writ- 
ten on their foreheads in large characters. 
Maury is formed to govern such men, and they 
are formed to obey him or any one else. But 
Maury seems to have too much vanity for a 
great man." To tell the bare truth is some- 



RETURN TO PARIS. 249 

times to make the most venomous comment 
possible, and tliis he evidently felt when he 
wrote of his meeting with the Cardinal de Ro- 
han : " We talk among other things about re- 
L'gion, for the cardinal is very devout. He was 
ODce the lover of Madame de Flahaut's sister." 

But as the tremendous changes went on 
about him, Morris had continually less and less 
time to spend in mere social pleasures ; graver 
and weightier matters called for his attention, 
and his Diary deals with the shifts and strata- 
gems of the French politicians, and pays little 
heed to the sayings and manners of nobles, 
bishops, and ladies of rank. 

The talented, self-confident, fearless Amer- 
ican, admittedly out of sympathy with what he 
called " this abominable populace," was now 
well known ; and in their terrible tangle of 
dangers and perplexities, court and ministry 
alike turned to him for help. Perhaps there 
has hardly been another instance where, in such 
a crisis, the rulers have clutched in their despair 
at the advice of a mere private stranger so- 
journing in the land on his own business. The 
king and his ministers, as well as the queen, 
kept in constant communication with him. 
With Montmorin he dined continually, and 
was consulted at every stage. But he could 
not prevail on them to adopt the bold, vigorous 



250 GOVVERNEUR MORRIS. 

measures he deemed necessary ; his plain speak- 
ing startled them, and they feared it would not 
suit the temper of the people. He drafted 
numerous papers for them, among others a royal 
speech, which the king liked, but which his 
ministers prevented him from using. In fact, 
it had grown to be hopeless to try to help the 
court ; for the latter pursued each course by 
fits and starts, now governed by advice from 
Coblentz, now by advice from Brussels, and 
then for a brief spasm going its own gait. All 
the while the people at large knew their own 
minds no better than poor Louis knew his, and 
cheered him with fervent ecstasy one day, only 
to howl at him "with malignant fury the next. 
With such a monarch and such subjects it is 
not probable that any plan would have worked 
well ; but Morris's was the ablest as well as 
the boldest and best defined of tlie many that 
were offered to the wretched, halting king; and 
had his proposed policy been pursued, things 
might have come out better, and they could not 
possibly have come out worse. 

All through these engrossing affairs, he kept 
up the liveliest interest in what was going on 
in his own country, writing home shrewd ob- 
servations on every step taken. One of his re- 
marks deserves to be kept in mind. In speak- 
ing of the desire of European nations to legis- 



RETURN TO PARTS. 251 

late against the introduction of our produce, 
he says that this effort has after all its bright 
side; because it will force us "to make great 
and rapid progress in useful manufactures. This 
alone is wanting to complete our independence. 
We shall then be, as it were, a world by our- 
selves." 



CHAPTER X. 

MINISTER TO FRANCE. 

In the spring of 1792, Morris received his 
credentials as minister to France. There had 
been determined opposition in the Senate to 
the confirmation of his appointment, which was 
finally carried only by a vote of sixteen to 
eleven, mainly through the exertions of Rufus 
King. His opponents urged the failure of the 
British negotiations, the evidences repeatedly 
given of his proud, impatient spirit, and above 
all his hostility to the French Revolution, as 
reasons why he should not be made minister. 
Washington, however, as well as Hamilton, 
King, and the other federalists, shared most of 
Morris's views with regard to the Revolution, 
and insisted upon his appointment. 

But the president, as good and wise a friend as 
Morris had, thought it best to send him a word 
of warning, coupling with the statement of his 
own unfaltering trust and regard, the reasons 
why the new diplomat should observe more 
circumspection than his enemies thought him 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 253 

capable of showing. For his opponents asserted 
that his brilliant, lively imagination always in- 
clined him to act so promptly as to leave no time 
for cool judgment, and was, wrote Washington, 
"the primary cause of those sallies which too 
often offend, and of that ridicule of character 
which begets enmity not easy to be forgotten, 
but which might easily be avoided if it were 
under the control of caution and prudence. . . . 
By reciting [their objections] I give you a 
proof of my friendship, if I give none of my 
policy." 

Morris took his friend's advice in good part, 
and profited by it as far as lay in his nature. He 
knew that he had a task of stupendous difficulty 
before him ; as it would be almost impossible for 
a minister to steer clear of the quarrels spring- 
ing from the ferocious hatred born to each other 
by the royalists and the various republican fac- 
tions. To stand ivell with all parties he knew 
was impossible : but he thought it possible, and 
merely so, to stand well with the best people in 
each, without greatly offending the others ; and 
in order to do this, he had to make up his mind 
to mingle with the worst as well as the best, to 
listen unmoved to falsehoods so foul and calum- 
nies so senseless as to seem the ravings of in- 
sanity; and meanwhile to wear a front so firm 
and yet so courteous as to ward off insult from 



254 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

his country and injury from himself during the 
days when the whole people went crazy with 
the blood-lust, when his friends were butchered 
by scores around him, and when the rulers had 
fulfiled Mirabeau's terrible prophecy, and had 
''paved the streets with their bodies." 

But when he began his duties, he was already 
entangled in a most dangerous intrigue, one of 
whose very existence he should not, as a foreign 
minister, have known, still less have entered 
mto. He got enmeshed in it while still a 
private citizen, and could not honorably with- 
draw, for it dealt with nothing less than the 
escape of the king and queen from Paris. His 
chivalrous sympathy for the two hemmed-in, 
hunted creatures, threatened by madmen and 
counseled by fools, joined with his character- 
istic impulsiveness and fearlessness, to incline 
him to make an effort to save them from their 
impending doom. A number of plans had been 
made to get the king out of Paris ; and as the 
managers of each were of necessity ignorant of 
all the rest, they clashed with and thwarted 
one another. Morris's scheme was made in 
concert with a M. de Monciel, one of the royal 
ministers, and some other French gentlemen ; 
and their measures were so well taken that they 
would doubtless have succeeded had not the 
king's nerve invariably failed him at the critical 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 255 

moment, and brought delay after delay. The 
Swiss guards, faithful to their salt, were always 
ready to cover his flight, and Lafayette would 
have helped them. 

Louis preferred Morris's plan to any of the 
others offered, and gave a most striking proof 
of his preference by sending to the latter, to- 
wards the end of July, to say how much he 
regretted that his advice had not been fol- 
lowed, and to ask him if he would not take 
charge of the royal papers and money. Morris 
was unwilling to take the papers, but finally 
consented to receive the money, amounting in 
all to nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand 
livres, which was to be paid out in hiring and 
bribing the men who stood in the way of the 
escape ; for most of the revolutionists were as 
venal as they were bloodthirsty. Still the 
king lingered; then came the 10th of August; 
the Swiss guards were slaughtered, and the 
whole scheme was at an end. Some of the men 
engaged in the plot were suspected; one, D'An- 
grdmont, was seized and condemned, but he 
went to his death without betraying his fellows. 
The others, by the liberal use of the money in 
Morris's possession, were saved, the authorities 
being bribed to wink at their escape or conceal- 
ment. Out of the money that was left ad- 
vances were made to Monciel and others ; finally, 



256 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

in 1796, Morris gave an accurate account of the 
expenditures to the dead king's daughter, the 
Duchesse d'Angouleme, then at the Austrian 
court, and turned over to her the remainder, 
consisting of a hundred and forty-seven pounds. 

Of course all this was work in which no min- 
ister had the least right to share; but the whole 
crisis was one so completely without precedent 
that it is impossible to blame Morris for what 
he did. The extraordinary trust reposed in 
him, and the feeling that his own exertions 
were all that lay between the two unfortunate 
sovereigns and their fate, roused his gallantry 
and blinded him to the risk he himself ran, as 
well as to the hazard to which he put his coun- 
try's interests. He was under no illusion as 
to the character of the people whom he was 
trying to serve. He utterly disapproved the 
queen's conduct, and he despised the king, not- 
ing the latter's feebleness and embarrassment, 
even on the occasion of his presentation at 
court ; he saw in them '' a lack of mettle which 
would ever prevent them from being truly 
royal " ; but when in their mortal agony they 
held out their hands to him for aid, his generous 
nature forbade him to refuse it, nor could he 
look on unmoved as they went helplessly down 
to destruction. 

The rest of his two years' history as minister 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 257 

forms one of the most brilliant chapters in our 
diplomatic annals. His boldness, and the frank- 
ness with which he expressed his opinions, 
though they at times irritated beyond measure 
the factions of tlie revolutionists who succes- 
sively grasped a brief but tremendous power, 
yet awed them, in spite of themselves. He soon 
learned to combine courage and caution, and 
his readiness, wit, and dash always gave him a 
certain hold over the fiery nation to which he 
was accredited. He was firm and dignified in 
insisting on proper respect being shown our 
flag, while he did all he could to hasten the 
payment of our obligations to France. A very 
large share of his time, also, was taken up with 
protesting against the French decrees aimed 
at neutral — which meant American — com- 
merce, and with interfering to save American 
ship-masters, who had got into trouble by un- 
wittingly violating them. Like his successor, 
Mr. Washburne, in the time of the commune, 
Morris was the only foreign minister who re- 
mained in Paris during the terror. He stayed 
at the risk of his life ; and yet, while fully 
aware of his danger, he carried himself as coolly 
as if in a time of profound peace, and never 
flinched for a moment when he was obliged for 
his country's sake to call to account the rulers of 
France for the time being — men whose power 



258 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

was as absolute as it was ephemeral and bloody, 
who held indulged their desire for slaughter 
with the unchecked ferocity of madmen, and 
who could by a word have had him slain as 
thousands had been slain before him. Few 
foreign ministers have faced such difficulties, 
and not one has ever come near to facing such 
dangers as Morris did during his two years' 
term of service. His feat stands by itself in 
diplomatic history ; and, as a minor incident, 
the letters and despatches he sent home give 
a very striking view of the French Revolution. 
As soon as he was appointed he went to see 
the French minister of foreign affairs ; and in 
answer to an observation of the latter stated 
with his customary straightforwardness that it 
was true that, while a mere private individual, 
sincerely friendly to France, and desirous of 
helping her, and whose own nation could not 
be compromised by his acts, he had freely taken 
part in passing events, had criticised the con- 
stitution, and advised the king and his minis- 
ters ; but he added that, now that he was a pub- 
lic man, he would no longer meddle with their 
affairs. To this resolution he kept, save that, 
as already described, sheer humanity induced 
him to make an effort to save the king's life. 
He had predicted what would ensue as the re- 
sult of the exaggerated decentralization into 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 259 

which the opponents of absolutism had rushed ; 
when they had split the state up into more than 
forty thousand sovereignties, each district the 
sole executor of the law, and the only judge of 
its propriety, and therefore obedient to it only 
so long as it listed, and until rendered hostile by 
the ignorant whim or ferocious impulse of the 
moment ; and now he was to see his predictions 
come true. In that brilliant and able state 
paper, the address he had drawn up for Louis to 
deliver when, in 1791, the latter accepted the 
constitution, the key-note of the situation was 
struck in tlie opening words ; '' It is no longer a 
king who addresses you, Louis XYI. is a private 
individual " ; and he had then scored off, point 
by point, the faults in a document that created 
an unwieldy assembly of men unaccustomed to 
govern, that destroyed the principle of author- 
ity, though no other could appeal to a people 
helpless in their new-born libert}^ and that 
created out of one whole a jarring multitude of 
fractional sovereignties. Now he was to see 
one of these same sovereignties rise up in suc- 
cessful rebellion against the government that 
repiesented the whole, destroy it and usurp its 
power, and establish over all France the rnle 
of an anarchic despotism which, by what seems 
to a free American a gross misnomer, they 
called a democracy. 



(?^ 



260 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

All through June, at the beginning of which 
month Morris had been formally presented at 
court, the excitement and tumult kept increas- 
ing. When, on the 20th, the mob forced the 
gates of the chateau, and made the king put 
on the red cap, Morris wrote in his Diary that 
the constitution had given its last groan. A 
few days afterwards he told Lafayette that in 
six weeks everything would be over, and tried 
to persuade him that his only chance was to 
make up his mind instantly to fight either for 
a good constitution or for the wretched piece 
of paper which bore the name. Just six weeks 
to a day from the date of this prediction came 
the 10 til of August to verify it. 

Throughout July the fevered pulses of the 
people beat with always greater heat. Looking 
at the maddened mob the American minister 
thanked God from bis heart that in his own 
country there was no such populace, and prayed 
with unwonted earnestness that our education 
and morality should forever stave off such an 
evil. At court even the most purblind dimly 
saw their doom. Calling there one morning 
he chronicles with a matter of fact brevity, im- 
pressive from its very baldness, that nothing of 
note had occurred except that they had stayed 
up all night expecting to be murdered. He 
wrote home that he could not tell " whether the 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 261 

king would live tbrongli the storm ; for it blew 
hard." 

His horror of the base mob, composed of peo- 
ple whose kind was absolutely unknown in 
America, increased continually, as he saw them 
going on from crimes that were great to crimes 
that were greater, incited by the demagogues 
who flattered them and roused their passions 
and appetites ; and blindly raging because they 
were of necessity disappointed in the golden 
prospects held out to them. He scorned the 
folly of the enthusiasts and doctrinaires who 
had made a constitution all sail and no ballast, 
that overset at the first gust ; who had freed 
from all restraint a mass of men as savage and 
licentious as they were wayward ; who had put 
the executive in the power of the legislature, 
and this latter at the mercy of the leaders who 
could most strongly influence and inflame the 
mob. But his contempt for the victims almost 
exceeded his anger at their assailants. The 
king, who could suffer with firmness, and who 
could act either not at all, or else with the 
worst possible effect, had the head and heart 
that might have suited the monkish idea of a 
female saint, but which were hopelessly out of 
place in any rational being supposed to be fitted 
for doing good in the world. Morris wrote 
home that he knew his friend Hamilton had no 



262 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

particular aversion to kings, and would not be- 
lieve them to be tigers ; but that if Hamilton 
came to Europe to see for himself, he would 
surely believe them to be monkeys ; the Em- 
press of Russia was the only reigning sovereign 
whose talents were not " considerably below 
par." At the moment of the final shock the 
court was involved in a set of paltry intrigues 
" unworthy of anything above the rank of a 
footman or a chambermaid. Every one had his 
or her little project, and every little project had 
some abettors. Strong, manly counsels fright- 
ened the weak, alarmed the envious, and 
wounded the enervated minds of the lazy and 
luxurious." The few such counsels that ap- 
peared were always approved, rarely adopted, 
and never followed out. 

Then in the sweltering heat of August, the 
end came. A raving, furious horde stormed 
the chateau, and murdered, one by one, the 
brave mountaineers who gave their lives for a 
sovereign too weak to be worthy of such gal- 
lant bloodshed. King and queen fled to the 
National Assembly, and the monarchy was 
over. Immediately after the awful catastrophe 
Morris wrote to a friend : " The voracity of the 
court, the haughtiness of the nobles, the sensu- 
ality of the church, have met their punishment 
in the road of their transgressions. The op- 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 263 

pressor has been squeezed by the hands of the 
oppressed ; but there remains yet to be acted 
an awful scene in this great tragedy, pla37-ed on 
the theatre of the universe for the instruction 
of mankind." 

Not the less did he dare everythhig, and 
jeopardize his own life in trying to save some 
at least among the innocent who had been over- 
thrown in the crash of tho common ruin. When 
on the 10th of August the whole city lay abject 
at the mercy of the mob, hunted men and 
women, bereft of all they had, and fleeing from 
a terrible death, with no hiding-place, no friend 
who could shield them, turned in their terror- 
struck despair to the one man in whose fearless- 
ness and generous gallantry they could trust. 
The shelter of Morris's house and flag was 
sought from early morning till past midnight 
by people who had nowhere else to go and who 
felt that within his walls they were sure of at 
least a brief safety from the maddened sav- 
ages in the streets. As far as possible they 
were sent off to places of greater security ; but 
some had to stay with him till the storm lulled 
for a moment. An American gentleman who 
was in Paris on that memorable day, after view- 
ing the sack of the Tuileries, thought it right 
to go to the house of the American minister. 
He found him surrounded by a score of people, 



264 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

of both sexes, among tbem the old Count 
d'Estaing, and other men of note, who had 
fought side by side with us in our war for in- 
dependence, and whom now our flag protected 
in their hour of direst need. Silence reigned, 
only broken occasionally by the weeping of the 
women and children. As his visitor was leav- 
ing, Morris took him to one side, and told him 
that he had no doubt there were persons on the 
watch who would find fault with his conduct 
as a minister in receiving and protecting these 
people; that they had come of their own accord, 
uninvited. *' Whether my house will be a pro- 
tection to them or to me, God only knows; but 
I will not turn them out of it, let what will hap- 
pen to me ; you see, sir, they are all persons to 
whom our country is more or less indebted, and 
had they no such claim upon me, it would be 
inhuman to force them into the hands of the 
assassins." No one of Morris's countrymen 
can read his words even now without feeling a 
throb of pride in the dead statesman, who, a 
centur}^ ago, held up so high the honor of his 
nation's name in the times when the souls of 
all but the very bravest were tried and found 
wanting. 

Soon after this he ceased writing in his Diary, 
for fear it might fall into the hands of men who 
would use it to incriminate his friends ; and for 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 265 

the same reason be had also to be rather wary 
in what lie wrote home, as his letters fre- 
quently bore marks of being opened, thanks to 
what he laughingly called "patriotic curiosity." 
He was, however, perfectly fearless as regards 
any ill that might befall himself ; his circum- 
spection was only exercised on behalf of others, 
and his own opinions were given as frankly as 
ever. 

He pictured the French as huddled together, 
in an unreasoning panic, like cattle before a 
thunderstorm. Their every act increased his 
distrust of their capacity for self-government. 
They were for the time agog with their repub- 
lic, and ready to adopt any form of govern- 
ment with a huzza ; but that they would adopt 
a good form, or, having adopted it, keep it, he 
did not believe ; and he saw that the great 
mass of the population were already veering 
round, under the pressure of accumulating 
horrors, until they would soon be ready to wel- 
come as a blessing even a despotism, if so they 
could gain security to life and property. They 
had made the common mistake of believing 
that to enjoy liberty they had only to abolish au- 
thority; and the equally common consequence 
was, that they were now, through anarchy, on 
the high road to absolutism. Said Morris : 
" Since I have been in this country I have seen 



266 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

the worship of many idols, and but little of the 
true God. I have seen many of these idols 
broken, and some of them beaten to the dust. 
I have seen the late constitution in one short 
year admired as a stupendous monument of hu- 
man wisdom, and ridiculed as an egregious pro- 
duction of folly and vice. I wish much, very 
much, the happiness of this inconstant people. 
I love them, I feel grateful for their efforts in 
our cause, and I consider the establishment of 
a good constitution here as the principal means, 
under Divine Providence, of extending the 
blessings of freedom to the many millions of 
my fellow-men who groan in bondage on the 
continent of Europe. But I do not greatly in- 
dulge the flattering illusions of hope, because I 
do not yet perceive that reformation of morals 
without which liberty is but an empty sound." 
These words are such as could only come from 
a genuine friend of France, and champion of 
freedom ; from a strong, earnest man, saddened 
by the follies of dreamers, and roused to stern 
anger by the licentious wickedness of scoun- 
drels who used the name of liberty to cloak the 
worst abuses of its substance. 

His stay in Paris was now melanchol}^ indeed. 
The city was shrouded in a gloom only relieved 
by the frenzied tumults that grew steadily more 
numerous. The ferocious craving once roused 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 267 

could not be sated ; the thirst grew ever stronger 
as the draughts were deeper. The danger to 
Morris's own person merely quickened his 
pulses, and roused his strong, brave nature ; he 
liked excitement, and the strain that would 
have been too tense for weaker nerves keyed 
his own up to a fierce, half-exultant thrilling. 
But the woes that befell those who had be- 
friended him caused him the keenest grief. It 
was almost unbearable to be seated quietly at 
dinner, and hear by accident " that a friend 
was on his way to the place of execution," and 
to have to sit still and wonder which of the 
guests dining with him would be the next to go 
to the scaffold. The vilest criminals swarmed 
in the streets, and amused themselves by tear- 
ing the earrings from women's ears, and snatch- 
ing away their watches. When the priests 
shut up in the carnes, and the prisoners in the 
ahhaie were murdered, the slaughter went on 
all day, and eight hundred men were engaged 
in it. 

He wrote home that, to give a true picture 
of France, he would have to paint it like an 
Indian warrior, black and red. The scenes 
that passed were literally beyond the imagina- 
tion of the American mind. The most hideous 
and nameless atrocities were so common as to 
be only alluded to incidentally, and to be re- 



268 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

cited in the most matter-of-fact way in connec- 
tion with other events. For instance, a man 
applied to the Convention for a recompense for 
damage done to his quarry, a pit dug deep 
through the surface of the earth into the stone 
bed beneath : the damage consisted in such a 
number of dead bodies having been thrown into 
the pit as to choke it up so that he could no 
longer get men to work it. Hundreds, who had 
been the first in the land, were thus destroyed 
without form or trial, and their bodies thrown 
like dead dogs into the first hole that offered. 
Two hundred priests were killed for no other 
crime than having been conscientiously scrupu- 
lous about taking the prescribed oath. The 
guillotine went smartly on, watched with a 
devilish merriment by the fiends who were 
themselves to perish by the instrument their 
own hands had wrought. " Heaven only knew 
who was next to drink of the dreadful cup ; as 
far as man could tell, there was to be no lack 
of liquor for some time to come." 

Among the new men who, one after another, 
sprang into the light, to maintain their unsteady 
footing as leaders for but a brief time before 
toppling into the dark abyss of death or oblivion 
that waited for each and all, Dumouriez was for 
the moment the most prominent. He stood 
towards the Gironde much as Lafayette had 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 269 

stood towards the Constitutionalists of 1789 : 
he led the army, as Lafayette once had led it; 
and as the constitutional monarchists had fallen 
before his fellow-republicans, so both he and 
they were to go down before the even wilder 
extremists of the " Mountain." For the factions 
in Paris, face to face with the banded might of 
the European monarchies, and grappling in a 
grim death-struggle with the counter -revolu- 
tionists of the provinces, yet fought one another 
with the same ferocity they showed towards the 
common foe. Nevertheless, success was theirs; 
for against opponents only less wicked than 
themselves the}^ moved with an infinitely su- 
perior fire and enthusiasm. Reeking with the 
blood of the guiltless, steeped in it to the lips, 
branded with fresh memories of crimes and in- 
famies without number, and yet feeling in their 
very marrow that they were avenging centuries 
of grinding and intolerable thrall dom, and that 
the cause for which they fought was just and 
righteous ; with shameless cruelty and corrup- 
tion eating into their hearts' core, yet with their 
foreheads kindled by the light of a glorious 
morning, — they moved with a ruthless energy 
that paralyzed their opponents, the worn-out, 
tottering, crazy despotisms, rotten with vice, 
despicable in their ludicrous pride of caste, 
moribund in their military pedantry, and fore- 



270 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

doomed to perish in tbe conflict they had 
courted. The daj^s of Danton and Robespierre 
are not days to which a French patriot cares to 
look back ; but at any rate he can regard them 
without the shame he must feel when he thinks 
of the times of Louis Quinze. Danton and his 
like, at least, were men, and stood far, far above 
the palsied coward — a eunuch in his lack of all 
virile virtues — who misruled France for half 
a century ; who, with his followers, indulged 
in every crime and selfish vice known, save 
only such as needed a particle of strength, or 
the least courage, in the committing. 

Morris first met Dumouriez when the latter 
was minister of foreign affairs, shortly before 
the poor king was driven from the Tuilleries. 
He dined with him, and afterwards noted down 
that the society w^as noisy and in bad style ; 
for the grace and charm of French social life 
were gone, and the raw republicans were ill at 
ease in the drawing-room. At this time Mor- 
ris commented often on the change in the look 
of Paris : all his gay friends gone ; the city 
sombre and uneasy. When he walked through 
the streets, in the stifling air of a summer hot 
beyond precedent, as if the elements sympa- 
thized with the passions of men, he met, instead 
of the brilliant company of former days, only 
the few peaceable citizens left, hurrying on their 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 271 

ways with frightened watchfulness; or else 
groups of lolling ruffians, with sinister eyes and 
brutalized faces ; or he saw in the Champs de 
Mars squalid ragamuffins signing the petition 
for the decheance. 

Morris wrote Washington that Dumourlez 
was a bold, determined man, bitterly hostile to 
the Jacobins and all the extreme revolutionary- 
clubs, and, once he was in power, willing to 
risk his own life in the effort to put them down. 
However, the hour of the Jacobins had not yet 
struck, and the Revolution had now been per- 
mitted to gather such headway that it could be 
stopped only by a master genius ; and Dumou- 
riez was none such. 

Still he was an able man, and, as Morris 
wrote home, in his military operations he com- 
bined the bravery of a skilled soldier and the 
arts of an astute politician. To be sure, his 
victories were not in themselves very note- 
worthy; the artillery skirmish at Valmy was 
decided by the reluctance of the Germans to 
come on, not by the ability of the French to 
withstand them ; and at Jemappes the impe- 
rialists were hopelessly outnumbered. Still the 
results were most important, and Dumouriez 
overran Flanders in the face of hostile Europe. 
He at once proceeded to revolutionize the gov- 
ernment of his conquest in the most approved 



272 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

French fashion, which was that all the neigh- 
bors of France should receive liberty whether 
or no, and should moreover pay the expense 
of having it thrust upon them ; accordingly he 
issued a proclamation to his new fellow-citizens, 
"which might be summed up in a few words as 
being an order to them to be free forthwith, 
according to his ideas of freedom, on pain of 
military execution." 

He had things all his own way for the mo- 
ment, but after a while he was defeated by the 
Germans ; then while the Gironde tottered to 
its fall, he fled to the very foes he had been 
fighting, as the only way of escaping death from 
the men whose favorite he had been. Morris 
laughed bitterly at tlie fickle people. One an- 
ecdote he gives is worth preserving: "It is a 
year ago that a person who mixed in tumults to 
see what was doing, told me of a sans culottes 
who, bellowing against poor Lafayette, when 
Petion appeared, changed at once his note to 
''Vive Petion /' and then, turning round to one 
of his companions, ' Vois tu ! C'est notre ami, 
n'est ce pas? Eh bien, il passera comme les 
autres.' And, lo ! tlie prophecy is fulfilled; and 
I this instant learn that Petion, confined to his 
room as a traitor or conspirator, has fled, on the 
24th of June, 1793, from those whom he sent, 
on the 20th of June, 1792, to assault the king 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 273 

in the Tuilerles, In short you will find, in the 
list of those wlio were ordered by their brethren 
to be arrested, the names of those who have 
proclaimed themselves to be the prime movers 
of the revolution of the 10th of August, and the 
fathers of the republic." 

About the time the sans culottes had thus 
bellowed against Lafayette, the latter met Mor- 
ris, for the first time since he was presented at 
court as minister, and at once spoke to him in 
his tone of ancient familiarity. The French- 
man had been brought at last to realize the 
truth of his American friend's theories and pre- 
dictions. It was much too late to save himself, 
however. After the 10th of August he was 
proclaimed by the Assembly, found his troops 
falling away from him, and fled over the fron- 
tier ; only to be thrown into prison by the allied 
monarchs, who acted with their usual folly and 
baseness. Morris, contemptuously impatient of 
the part he had played, wrote of him : " Thus 
his circle is completed. He has spent his for- 
tune on a revolution, and is now crushed by the 
wheel which he put in motion. He lasted longer 
than I expected." But this momentary indig- 
nation soon gave way to a generous sympathy 
for the man who had served America so well, 
and who, if without the great abilities necessary 
to grapple with the tumult of French affairs, 



274 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

had yet always acted with such unselfish purity 
of motive. Lafayette, as soon as he was impris- 
oned, wrote to the American minister in Hol- 
land, alleging that he had surrendered his po- 
sition as a French subject, and was now an 
American citizen, and requesting the American 
representatives in Europe to procure his release. 
His claim was of course untenable; and, though 
the American government did all it could on his 
behalf through its foreign ministers, and though 
Washington himself wrote a strong letter of 
appeal to the Austrian emperor, he remained 
in prison until the peace, several years later. 

All Lafayette's fortune was gone, and while 
in prison he was reduced to want. As soon 
as Morris heard this, he had the sum of ten 
thousand florins forwarded to the prisoner by 
the United States bankers at Amsterdam ; 
pledging his own security for the amount, which 
was, however, finally allowed by the govern- 
ment under the name of compensation for La- 
fayette's military services in America. Morris 
was even more active in befriending Madame 
de Lafayette and her children. To the former 
he lent from his own private funds a hundred 
thousand livres, enabling her to pay her debts 
to the many poor people who had rendered ser- 
'Vices to her family. To the proud, sensitive 
lady the relief was great, much though it hurt 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 275 

her to be under any obligation : she wrote to her 
friend that he had broken the chains that loaded 
her down, and had done it in a way that made 
her feel the consolation, rather than the weight, 
of the obligation. But he was to do still more 
for her ; for, when she was cast into prison by 
the savage Parisian mob, his active influence 
on her behalf saved her from death. In a let- 
ter to him, written some time later, she says, 
after speaking of the money she had borrowed: 
" This is a slight obligation, it is true, compared 
with that of my life, but allow me to remember 
both while life lasts, with a sentiment of grati- 
tude which it is precious to feel." 

There were others whose fortunes turned with 
the wheel of fate, for whom Morris felt no such 
sympathy as for the Lafayettes. Among the 
number was the Duke of Orleans, now trans- 
formed into citoyen Egalite. Morris credited 
this graceless debauchee w^ith criminal ambi- 
tions which he probably did not possess, saying 
that he doubted the public virtue of a profli- 
gate, and could not help distrusting such a 
man's pretensions ; nor is it likely that he re- 
gretted much the fate of the man who died 
under the same guillotine which, with his as- 
sent, had fallen on the neck of the king, his 
cousin. 

It needed no small amount of hardihood for 



276 GOVVERNEUR MQRRIS. 

a man of Morris's prominence and avowed sen* 
timents to stay in Paris when Death was mowing 
round him with a swath at once so broad and 
so irregular. The power was passing rapidly 
from hand to hand, through a succession of men 
fairly crazy in their indifference to bloodshed. 
Not a single other minister of a neutral nation 
dared stay. In fact, the foreign representatives 
were preparing to go away even before the final 
stroke was given to the monarchy, and soon 
after the 10th of August the entire corps diplo- 
matique left Paris as rapidly as the various 
members could get their passports. These the 
new republican government was at first very 
reluctant to grant ; indeed, when the Venetian 
ambassador started off he was very ignomin- 
iously treated and brought back. Morris went 
to the British ambassador's to take leave, hav- 
ing received much kindness from him, and hav- 
ing been very intimate in his house. He found 
Lord Gower in a tearing passion because he 
could not get passports ; he had burned his 
papers, and strongly advised his guest to do 
likewise. On this advice the latter refused to 
act, nor would he take the broad hints given 
him to the effect that honor required him to 
quit the country. Morris could not help show- 
ing his amusement at the fear and anger exhib- 
ited at the ambassador's, " which exhibition of 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 211 

spirits bis lordship could hardly bear." Talley- 
rand, Tvho was getting bis own passport, also 
did all in his power to persuade the American 
minister to leave, but without avail. Morris 
was not a man to be easily shaken in any deter- 
mination he had taken after careful thought. 
He wrote back to Jefferson that his opinion 
was directly opposed to the views of such people 
as had tried to persuade him that his own 
honor, and that of America, required him to 
leave France ; and that he was inclined to at- 
tribute such counsel mainly to fear. It was 
true that the position was not without danger ; 
but he presumed that, when the president named 
him to the embassy, it was not for his own per- 
sonal pleasure or safety, but for the interests of 
the country ; and these he could certainly serve 
best by staying. 

He was able to hold his own only by a mix- 
ture of tact and firmness. Any signs of flinch- 
ing would have ruined him outright. He would 
submit to no insolence. The minister of for- 
eign affairs was, with his colleagues, engaged in 
certain schemes in reference to the American 
debt, which were designed to further their own 
private interests ; he tried to bully Morris into 
acquiescence, and, on the latter's point-blank 
refusal, sent him a most insulting letter. Mor- 
ris promptly retorted by demanding his pass- 



278 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

ports. France, however, was very desirous not 
to break with the United States, the only friend 
she had left in the world ; and the offending 
minister sent a sullen letter of apology, ask- 
ing him to reconsider his intention to leave, 
and offering entire satisfaction for every point 
of which he complained. Accordingly Morris 
stayed. 

He was, however, continually exposed to in- 
sults and worries, which were always apologized 
for by the government for the time being, on 
the ground, no doubt true, that in such a period 
of convulsions it was impossible to control their 
subordinate agents. Indeed, the changes from 
one form of anarchy to another went on so 
rapidly that the laws of nations had small 
chance of observance. 

One evening a number of people, headed by 
a commissary of the section, entered his house, 
and demanded to search it for arms said to be 
hidden therein. Morris took a high tone, and 
was very peremptory with them ; told them 
that they should not examine his house, that it 
held no arms, and moreover that, if he had pos- 
sessed any, they should not touch one of them ; 
he also demanded the name of " the blockhead 
or rascal " who had informed against him, an- 
nouncing his intention to bring him to punish- 
ment. Finally he got them out of the house, 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 279 

and tlie next morning the commissary called 
with many apologies, which were accepted. 

Another time he was arrested in the street 
for not having a carte de citoi/en, but he was 
released as soon as it was found out who he was. 
Again he was arrested while traveling in the 
country, on the pretence that his passport was 
out of date; an insult for which the government 
at once made what amends they could. His 
house was also visited another time by armed 
men, whom, as before, he persuaded to go away. 
Once or twice, in the popular tumults, even his 
life was in danger ; on one occasion it is said 
that it was only saved by the fact of his having 
a wooden leg, which made him known to the 
mob as " a cripple of the American war for 
freedom." Rumors even got abroad in England 
and America that he had been assassinated. 

Morris's duties were manifold, and as harass- 
ing to himself as they were beneficial to his 
country. Sometimes he would interfere on be- 
half of America as a whole, and endeavor to 
get obnoxious decrees of the Assembly repealed ; 
and again he would try to save some private 
citizen of the United States who had got him- 
self into difficulties. Reports of the French 
minister of foreign affairs, as well as reports of 
the eomite de salut public^ alike bear testimony 
to the success of his endeavors, whenever sue- 



280 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

cess was possible, and unconsciously show the 
value of the services he rendered to his country. 
Of course it was often impossible to obtain com- 
plete redress, because, as Morris wrote home, 
the government, while all-powerful in certain 
cases, was in others not merely feeble, but en- 
slaved, and was often obliged to commit acts the 
consequences of which the nominal leaders both 
saw and lamented. Morris also, while doing 
all he could for his fellow-citizens, was often 
obliged to choose between their interests and 
those of the nation at large ; and he of course 
decided in favor of the latter, though well 
aware of the clamor that was certain to be 
raised against him in consequence by those 
who, as he caustically remarked, found it the 
easiest thing in the world to get anything they 
w^anted from the French government until they 
had tried. 

One of his most important transactions was 
in reference to paying off the debt due by 
America for amounts loaned her during the 
war for independence. The interest and a part 
of the principal had already been paid. At 
the time when Morris was made minister, the 
United States had a large sum of money, des- 
tined for the payment of the public debt, Ijnng 
idle in the hands of the bankers at Amsterdam; 
and this sum both Morris and the American 



MINISTER TO FRANCE, 281 

minister to Hollaiid, Mr. Short, thought could 
be well applied to the payment of part of our 
remaining obligation to France. The French 
government was consulted, and agreed to receive 
the sum ; but hardly was the agreement en- 
tered into before the monarchy was overturned. 
The question at once arose as to whether the 
money could be rightfully paid over to the men 
who had put themselves at the head of affairs, 
and who, a month hence, might themselves be 
ousted by others who would not acknowledge 
the validity of a payment made to them. Short 
thought the payment should be stopped, and, as 
it afterwards turned out, the home authorities 
agreed with him. But Morris thought other- 
wise, and paid over the amount. Events fully- 
justified his course, for France never made 
any difficulty in the matter, and even had she 
done so, as Morris remarked, America had the 
staff in her own hands, and could walk which 
way she pleased, for she owed more money, and 
in the final adjustment could insist on the 
amount paid being allowed on account of the 
debt. 

The French executive council owed Morris 
gratitude for his course in this matter ; but they 
became intensely irritated with him shortly 
afterwards because he refused to fall in with 
certain proposals they made to him as to the 



282 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

maiinev of applying part of the debt to the pur- 
chase of provisions and munitions for San Do- 
mingo. Morris had good reason to believe that 
there was a private speculation at the bottom of 
this proposal, and declined to accede to it. The 
urgency with which it was made, and the wrath 
which his course excited, confirmed his suspi- 
cions, and he persisted in his refusal although 
it almost brought about a break with the men 
then carrying on the government. Afterwards, 
when these men fell with the Gironde, he 
wrote home : " I mentioned to you the plan 
of a speculation on drafts to have been made 
on the United States, could my concurrence 
have been procured. Events have shown that 
this speculation would have been a good one to 
the parties, who would have gained (and the 
French nation of course have lost) about fifty 
thousand pounds sterling in eighty thousand. 
I was informed at that time that the disap- 
pointed parties would attempt to have me 
recalled, and some more tractable character 
sent, who would have the good sense to look 
after his own interest. Well, sir, nine months 
have elapsed, and now, if I were capable of 
such things, I think it would be no difficult 
matter to have some of them hanged ; indeed 
it is highly probable that they will experience 
a fate of that sort."*' 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 283 

Mucli of his time was also taken up in re- 
monstrating against the attacks of French 
privateers on American shipping. These, how- 
ever, went steadily on until, half a dozen years 
afterwards, we took the matter into our own 
hands, and in the West Indies inflicted a smart 
drubbing, not only on the privateers of France, 
but on her regular men-of-war as well. He 
also did what he could for the French ofiicers 
who had served in America during the War of 
Independence, most of w4iom were forced to flee 
from France after the outbreak of the Reyolu- 
tion. 

His letters home, even after his regular du- 
ties had begun to be engrossing, contained a 
running commentary on the events that were 
passing around him. His forecasts of events 
within France were remarkably shrewd, and 
he displayed a wonderful insight into the mo- 
tives and characters of the various leaders; 
but at first he was all at sea in his estimate 
of the military situation, being much more at 
home among statesmen than soldiers. He had 
expected the allied sovereigns to make short 
work of the raw republican armies, and was 
amazed at the success of the latter. But he 
very soon realized how the situation stood; 
that whereas the Austrian and Prussian troops 
simply came on in well-drilled, reluctant obedi- 



284 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

eiice to their commanding officers, the soldiers 
of France, on the contrary, were actuated by a 
fiery spirit the like of which had hardly been 
seen since the crusades. The bitterness of 
the contest was appalling, and so was the way 
in which the ranks of the contestants were 
thinned out. The extreme republicans believed 
in their creed with a furious faith ; and they 
were joined by their fellow - citizens with an 
almost equal zeal, when once it had become 
evident that the invaders were hostile not only 
to the Kepublic but to France itself, and very 
possibly meditated its dismemberment. 

When the royal and imperial forces invaded 
France in 1792, they threatened such ferocious 
vengeance as to excite the most desperate resist- 
ance, and yet they backed up their high sound- 
ing words by deeds so faulty, weak, and slow 
as to make themselves objects of contempt 
rather than dread. The Duke of Brunswick 
in particular, as a prelude to some very harm- 
less military manoeuvres, issued a singularly 
lurid and foolish manifesto, announcing that he 
would deliver up Paris to utter destruction and 
would give over all the soldiers he captured to 
military execution. Morris said that his ad- 
dress was in substance, " Be all against me, 
for I am opposed to you all, and make a good 
resistance, for there is no longer any hope ; " and 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 285 

added that it would have been wiser to have be- 
gun with some great success and then to have 
carried the danger near those whom it was de- 
sired to intimidate. As it was, the Duke's cam- 
paign failed ignominiously, and all the inva- 
ders were driven back, for France rose as one 
man, her warriors overflowed on every side,, 
and bore down all her foes by sheer weight 
of numbers and impetuous enthusiasm. Her 
government was a despotism as well as an an- 
archy ; it was as totally free from the draw- 
backs as from the advantages of the demo- 
cratic system that it professed to embody. 
Nothing could exceed the merciless energy of 
the measures adopted. Half-way wickedness 
might have failed ; but a wholesale murder of 
the disaffected, together with a confiscation of 
all the goods of the rich, and a vigorous con- 
scription of the poor for soldiers, secured suc- 
cess, at least for the time being. The French 
made it a war of men ; so that the price of labor 
rose enormously at once, and the condition of 
the working classes forthwith changed greatly 
for the better — one good result of the Revo- 
lution, at any rate. 

Morris wrote home very soon after the 10th 
of August that the then triumphant revolution- 
ists, the Girondists or party of Brissot, who had 
supplanted the moderate party of Lafayette ex- 



286 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

actly as the latter had succeeded the aristoc- 
racy, would soon in their turn be overthrown 
by men even more extreme and even more 
bloodthirsty; and that thus it would go on, 
wave after wave, until at last the wizard arose 
who could still them. By the end of the year 
the storm had brewed long enough to be near 
the bursting point. One of the promoters of 
the last outbreak, now himself marked as a 
victim, told Morris that he personally would die 
hard, but that most of his colleagues, though 
like him doomed to destruction, and though so 
fierce in dealing with the moderate men, now 
showed neither the nerve nor hardihood that 
alone could stave off the catastrophe. 

Meanwhile the king, as Morris wrote home, 
showed in his death a better spirit than his 
life had promised ; for he died in a manner 
becoming his dignity, with calm courage, pray- 
ing that his foes might be forgiven and his 
deluded people be benefited by his death, — his 
words from the scaffold being drowned by the 
drums of Santerre. As a whole, the Gironde 
had opposed putting the king to death, and 
thus capping the structure whose foundations 
they had laid ; they held back all too late. 
The fabric of their system was erected on a 
quagmire, and it now settled down and crushed 
the men who had built it. " All people of moral- 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 287 

ity and intelligence had long agreed that as yet 
republican virtues were not of Gallic growth ; " 
and so the power slipped naturally into the 
grasp of the lowest and most violent, of those 
who were loudest to claim the possession of 
republican principles, while in practice show- 
ing that they had not even the dimmest idea 
of what such principles meant. 

The leaders were quite at the mercy of the 
gusts of fierce passion that swayed the breasts 
of their brutal followers. Morris wrote home 
that the nominal rulers, or rather the few by 
whom these rulers were directed, had finally 
gained very just ideas of the value of popular 
opinion ; but that they were not in a condition 
to act according to their knowledge ; and that if 
they were able to reach harbor there would be 
quite as much of good luck as of good manage- 
ment about it, and, at any rate, a part of the 
crew would have to be thrown overboard. 

Then the Mountain rose under Danton and 
Marat, and the party of the Gironde was en- 
tirely put down. The leaders were cast into 
prison, with the certainty before their eyes that 
the first great misfortune to France would call 
them from their dungeons to act as expiatory 
victims. The Jacobins ruled supreme, and un- 
der them the government became a despotism 
in principle as well as in practice. Part of the 



288 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

Convention arrested the rest ; and the revolu- 
tionary tribunals ruled red - handed, with a 
whimsical and ferocious tyranny. Said Morris : 
" It is an emphatical phrase among the patriots 
that terror is the order of the day ; some years 
have elapsed since Montesquieu wrote that the 
principle of arbitrary governments is fear.''' 
The prisons were choked with suspects^ and 
blood flowed more freely than ever. Terror had 
reached its highest point. Danton was soon to 
fall before Robespierre. Among a host of other 
victims the queen died, with a brave dignity 
that made people half forget her manifold 
faults ; and Philippe Egalite, the dissolute and 
unprincipled scoundrel, after a life than which 
none could be meaner and more unworthy, now 
at the end went to his death with calm and 
unflinching courage. 

One man liad a very narrow escape. This 
was Thomas Paine, the Englishman, who had 
at one period rendered such a striking ser- 
vice to the cause of American independence, 
while the^rest of his life had been as ignoble as 
it was varied. He had been elected to the Con- 
vention, and, having sided with the Gironde, was 
thrown into prison by the Jacobins. He at 
once asked Morris to demand him as an Amer- 
ican citizen ; a title to which he of course had 
no claim. Morris refused to interfere too 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 289 

actively, judging rightly that Paine would be 
saved by his own insignificance and would serve 
his own interests best by keeping still. So the 
filthy little atheist had to stay in prison, 
"where he amused himself with publishing a 
pamphlet against Jesus Christ." There are 
infidels and infidels ; Paine belonged to the va- 
riety — whereof America possesses at present 
one or two shining examples — that apparently 
esteems a bladder of dirty water as the proper 
weapon with which to assail Christianity. It 
is not a type that appeals to the sympathy of 
an onlooker, be said onlooker religious or other- 
wise. 

Morris never paid so much heed to the mili- 
tary events as to the progress of opinion in 
France, believing " that such a great country 
must depend more upon interior sentiment than 
exterior operations." He took a half melan- 
choly, half sardonic interest in the overthrow of 
the Catholic religion by the revolutionists ; who 
had assailed it with the true French weapon, 
ridicule, but ridicule of a very grim and un- 
pleasant kind. The people who five years be- 
fore had fallen down in the dirt as the conse- 
crated matter passed by, now danced the car- 
magnole in holy vestments, and took part in 
some other mummeries a great deal more 
blasphemous. At the famous Feast of Reason, 



290 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

which Morris described as a kind of opera 
performed in Notre Dame, the president of the 
Convention, and other public characters, adored 
on bended knees a girl who stood in the place 
ci-devant most holy to personate Reason her- 
self. This girl, Saunier by name, followed the 
trades of an opera dancer and harlot ; she was 
" very beautiful and next door to an idiot as to 
her intellectual gifts." Among her fea^s was 
having appeared in a ballet in a dress especially 
designed, by the painter David, at her bidding, 
to be more indecent than nakedness. Alto- 
gether she was admirably fitted, both morally 
and mentally, to personify the kind of reason 
shown and admired by the French revolution- 
ists. 

Writing to a friend who was especially hos- 
tile to Romanism, Morris once remarked, with 
the humor that tinged even his most serious 
thoughts, "Every day of my life gives me rea- 
son to question my own infallibility ; and of 
course leads me further from confiding in that 
of the pope. Bat I have lived to see a new re- 
ligion arise. It consists in a denial of all reli- 
gion, and its votaries have the superstition of 
not being superstitious. The}^ have this with 
as much zeal as any other sect, and are as 
ready to lay waste the world in order to make 
proselytes." Another time, speaking of his coun- 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 291 

try place at Sainport, to which he had retired 
from Paris, he wrote : " We are so scorched by 
a long drought that in spite of all philosophic 
notions we are beginning our procession to ob- 
tain the favor of the hon dieu. Were it proper 
for un homme public et protestant to interfere, I 
should be tempted to tell them that mercy is 
before sacrifice." Those individuals of arrested 
mental development who now make pilgrim- 
ages to our Lady of Lourdes had plenty of 
prototypes, even in the atheistical France of 
the Revolution. 

In his letters home Morris occasionally made 
clear-headed comments on American affairs. 
He considered that " we should be unwise in the 
extreme to involve ourselves in the contests of 
European nations, where our weight could be 
but small, though the loss to ourselves would 
be certain. We ought to be extremely watch- 
ful of foreign affairs, but there is a broad line 
between vigilance and activity." Both France 
and England had violated their treaties with 
us ; but the latter " had behaved worst, and with 
deliberate intention." He especially laid stress 
upon the need of our having a navy ; " with 
twenty ships of the line at sea no nation on 
earth will dare to insult us ; " even aside from 
individual losses, five years of war would involve 
more national expense than the support of a 



292 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

navy for twenty years, and until we rendered 
ourselves respectable, we should continue to be 
insulted. He never showed greater wisdom 
than in his views about our nav}^ ; and his party, 
the federalists, started to give us one ; but it 
had hardly been begun before the Jeffersoiiians 
came into power, and, with singular foolishness, 
stopped the work. 

Washington heartily sympathized with Mor- 
ris's views as to the French Revolution ; he 
wrote him that events had more than made 
good his gloomiest predictions. Jefferson, how- 
ever, was utterly opposed to his theories, and 
was much annoyed at the forcible way in which 
he painted things as they were ; characteristi- 
cally enough, he only showed his annoyance by 
indirect methods, — leaving Morris's letters un- 
answered, keeping him in the dark as toevents 
at home, etc. Morris understood all this per- 
fectly, and was extremely relieved when Ran- 
dolph became secretary of state in Jefferson's 
stead. Almost immediately afterwards, how- 
ever, he was himself recalled. The United 
States, having requested the French government 
to withdraw Genet, a harlequin rather than a 
diplomat, it was done at once, and in return a 
request was forwarded that the United States 
would reciprocate by relieving Morris, which of 
course had to be done also. The revolutionary 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 293 

authorities both feared and disliked Morris ; he 
could neither be flattered nor bullied, and he 
was known to disapprove of their excesses. 
They also took umbrage at his haughtiness ; an 
unfortunate expression he used in one of his 
official letters to them, "ma cour," gave great 
offense, as being unrepublican — precisely as 
they had previously objected to Washington's 
using the phrase »' your people " in writing to 
the king. 

Washington wrote him a letter warmly ap- 
proving of his past conduct. Nevertheless 
Morris was not over-pleased at being recalled. 
He thought that, as things then were in France, 
any minister who gave satisfaction to its gov- 
ernment would prove forgetful of the interests 
of America. He was probably right ; at any 
rate, what he feared was just what happened 
under his successor, Monroe — a very amiable 
gentleman, but distinctly one who comes in the 
category of those whose greatness is thrust upon 
them. However, under the circumstances, it 
was probably impossible for our government to 
avoid recalling Morris. 

He could say truthfully ; " I have the conso- 
lation to have made no sacrifice either of per- 
sonal or national dignity, and I believe I should 
have obtained everything if the American gov- 
ernment had refused to recall me." His ser- 



294 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

vices had been invaluable to us ; lie bad kept 
our national reputation at a high point, by the 
scrupulous heed with which he saw that all our 
obligations were fulfilled, as well as by the firm 
courage with which he insisted on our rights 
being granted us. He believed " that all our 
treaties, however onerous, must be strictly ful- 
filled according to their true intent and meaning. 
The honest nation is that which, like the honest 
man, ' hath to its plighted faith and vow for- 
ever firmly stood, and though it promise to its 
loss, yet makes that promise good ; ' " and in 
return he demanded that others should mete to 
us the same justice we meted to them. He met 
each difliculty the instant it arose, ever on the 
alert to protect his country and his countrymen ; 
and what an ordinary diplomat could barely 
have done in time of peace, he succeeded in 
doing amid the wild, shifting tumult of the Re- 
volution, when almost every step he made was at 
his own personal hazard. He took precisely the 
right stand; had he taken too hostile a position, 
he would have been driven from the country, 
whereas had he been a sympathizer, he would 
have more or less compromised America, as his 
successor afterwards did. We have never had 
a foreign minister who deserved more honor 
than Morris. 

One of the noteworthy features in his letters 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 295 

home was the accuracy with which he foretold 
the course of events in the political world. Lu- 
zerne once said to him, " Vous dites toujours les 
choses extraordinaires qui se realisent ; " and 
many other men, after some given event had 
taken place, were obliged to confess their won- 
der at the way in which Morris's predictions 
concerning it had been verified. A notable in- 
stance was his writinoj to Washincjton : " What- 
ever may be the lot of France in remote futu- 
rity ... it seems evident that she must soon 
be governed by a single despot. Whether she 
will pass to that point through the medium of 
a triumvirate or other small body of men, seems 
as yet undetermined. I think it most probable 
that she will." This was certainly a remarka- 
bly accurate forecast as to the precise stages by 
which the already existing despotism was to be 
concentrated in a single individual. He always 
insisted that, though it was difficult to foretell 
how a single man would act, yet it was easy 
with regard to a mass of men, for their pecu- 
liarities neutralized each other, and it was ne- 
cessary only to pay heed to the instincts of the 
average animal. He also gave wonderfully 
clear-cut sketches of the more prominent actors 
in affairs ; although one of his maxims was that 
'' in examining historical facts we are too apt 
to ascribe to individuals the events which are 



296 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

produced by general causes." Danton, for in- 
stance, he described as always believing, and, 
what was worse for himself, maintaining, that 
a popular system of government was absurd in 
France ; that the people were too ignorant, too 
inconstant, too corrupt, and felt too much the 
need of a master ; in short, that they had 
reached the point where Cato was a madman, 
and Caesar a necessary evil. He acted on these 
principles ; but he was too voluptuous for his 
ambition, too indolent to acquire supreme 
power, and he cared for great wealth rather 
than great fame ; so he " fell at the feet of 
Robespierre." Similarly, said Morris, there 
passed away all the men of the 10th of August, 
all the men of the 2d of September ; the same 
mob that hounded them on with wild applause 
when they grasped the blood-stained reins of 
power, a few months later hooted at them with 
ferocious derision as they went their way to the 
guillotine. Paris ruled France, and the sans 
culottes ruled Paris ; factions continually arose, 
waging inexplicable war, each in turn acquiring 
a momentary influence which was founded on 
fear alone, and all alike unable to build up any 
stable or lasting government. 

Each new stroke of the guillotine weak- 
ened the force of liberal sentiment, and di- 
minished the chances of a free system. Mor- 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 297 

ris wondered only that, in a countr}'- ripe for a 
tyrant's rule, four years of convulsions among 
twenty-four millions of people had brought 
forth neither a soldier nor yet a statesman, 
whose head was fitted to wear the cap that for- 
tune had woven. Despising the mob as utterly 
as did Oliver Cromwell himself, and realizing 
the supine indifference with which the French 
people were willing to accept a master, he yet 
did full justice to the pride with which they re- 
sented outside attack, and the enthusiasm with 
which they faced their foes. He saw the im- 
mense resources possessed by a nation to whom 
war abroad was a necessity for the preservation 
of peace at home, and with whom bankruptcy 
was but a starting-point for fresh efforts. The 
whole energy and power lay in the hands of the 
revolutionists ; the men of the old regime had 
fled, leaving only that " waxen substance," the 
propertied class, '' who in foreign wars count so 
much, and in civil wars so little." He had no 
patience with those despicable beings, the trad- 
ers and merchants who have forgotten how to 
fight, the rich who are too timid to guard their 
wealth, the men of property, large or small, 
who need peace, and yet have not the sense and 
courage to be always prepared to conquer it. 

In his whole attitude towards the Revolution, 
Morris represents better than any other man 



298 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

the clear-beaded, practical statesman, who is 
genuinely devoted to the cause of constitutional 
freedom. He was utterly opposed to the old 
system of privilege on the one hand, and to the 
wild excesses of the fanatics on the other. The 
few liberals of the Revolution were the only 
men in it who deserve our true respect. The 
republicans who champion the deeds of the 
Jacobins, are traitors to their own principles ; 
for the spirit of Jacobinism, instead of being 
identical with, is diametrically opposed to the 
spirit of true liberty. Jacobinism, socialism, 
communism, nihilism, and anarchism — these 
are the real foes of a democratic republic, for 
each one, if it obtains control, obtains it only 
as the sure forerunner of a despotic tyranny 
and of some form of the one-man power. 

Morris, an American, took a clearer and truer 
view of the French Revolution than did any of 
the contemporary European observers. Yet 
while with them it was the all-absorbing event 
of the age, with him, as is evident by his writ- 
ings, it was merely an important episode ; for 
to him it was dwarfed by the American Revo- 
lution of a decade or two back. To the Euro- 
peans of the present day, as yet hardly awake 
to the fact that already the change has begun 
that will make Europe but a fragment, instead 
of the whole, of the civilized world, the French 



MINISTER TO FRANCE. 299 

Revolution is the great historical event of our 
times. But in reality it affected only the peo- 
ple of western and central Europe ; not the 
Russians, not the English-speaking nations, not 
the Spaniards who dwelt across the Atlantic. 
America and Australia had their destinies 
moulded by the crisis of 1776, not by the crisis 
of 1789. What the French Revolution was to 
the states within Europe, that the American 
Revolution was to the continents without. 



CHAPTER XI. 

STAY IN EUROPE. 

MOKROE, as Morris's successor, entered upon 
his new duties with an immense flourish, and 
rapidly gave a succession of startling proofs that 
he was a minister altogether too much to the 
taste of the frenzied Jacobinical republicans to 
■whom he was accredited. Indeed, his capers 
were almost as extraordinary as their own, and 
seem rather like the antics of some of the early 
French commanders in Canada, in their efforts 
to ingratiate themselves with their Indian allies, 
than like the performance we should expect 
from a sober Virginian gentleman on a mission 
to a civilized nation. He stayed long enough 
to get our affairs into a snarl, and was then 
recalled by Washington, receiving from the 
latter more than one scathing rebuke. 

However, the fault was really less with him 
than with his party and with those who sent 
him. Monroe was an honorable man with a 
very un-original mind, and he simply reflected 
the wild, foolish views held by all his fellows 



STAY IN EUROPE. 301 

of the Jeffersonian democratic - republican 
school concerning France — for our politics 
were still French and English, but not yet 
American. His appointment was an excellent 
example of the folly of trying to carry on a 
government on a "non-partisan" basis. Wash- 
ington was only gradually weaned from this 
theory by bitter experience ; both Jefferson 
and Monroe helped to teach him the lesson. It 
goes without saying that in a well-ordered gov- 
ernment the great bulk of the employees in the 
civil service, the men whose functions are mere- 
ly to execute faithfully routine departmental 
work, should hold office during good behavior, 
and should be appointed without reference to 
their politics ; but if the higher public servants, 
such as the heads of departments and the for- 
eign ministers, are not in complete accord with 
their chief, the only result can be to introduce 
halting indecision and vacillation into the coun- 
sels of the nation, without gaining a single com- 
pensating advantage, and without abating by 
one iota the virulence of party passion. To 
appoint Monroe, an extreme Democrat, to 
France, while at the same time appointing Jay, 
a strong Federalist, to England, was not only 
an absurdity which did nothing towards recon- 
ciling the Federalists and Democrats, but, bear- 
ing in mind how these parties stood respectively 



302 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

towards England and France, it was also an 
actual wrong, for it made our foreign policy 
seem double-faced and deceitful. While one 
minister was formally embracing such of the 
Parisian statesmen as had hitherto escaped 
the guillotine, and was going through various 
other theatrical performances that do not ap- 
peal to any but a Gallic mind, his fellow was 
engaged in negotiating a treaty in England that 
was so obnoxious to France as almost to bring 
us to a rupture with her. The Jay treaty was 
not altogether a good one, and a better might 
perhaps have been secured ; still, it was better 
than nothing, and Washington was right in 
urging its adoption, even while admitting that 
it was not entirely satisfactory. But certainly, 
if we intended to enter into such engagements 
with Great Britain, it was rank injustice to 
both Monroe and France to send such a man 
as the former to such a country as the latter. 

Meanwhile Morris, instead of returning to 
America, was forced by his business affairs to 
prolong his stay abroad for several years. 
During this time he journeyed at intervals 
through England, the Netherlands, Germany, 
Prussia, and Austria. His European reputation 
was well established, and he was everywhere 
received gladly into the most distinguished 
society of the time. What made him especially 



STAY IN EUROPE. 303 

welcome was his having now definitely taken 
sides with the anti-revolutionists in the great 
conflict of arms and opinions then raging 
through Europe ; and his brilliancy, the bold- 
ness with which he had behaved as minister 
during the Terror, and the reputation given him 
by the French emigres.^ all joined to cause him 
to be hailed with pleasure by the aristocratic 
party. It is really curious to see the consider- 
ation with which he was everywhere treated, 
although again a mere private individual, and 
the terms of intimacy on which he was admitted 
into the most exclusive social and diplomatic 
circles at the various courts. He thus became 
an intimate friend of many of the foremost 
people of the period. His political observation, 
however, became less trustworthy than hereto- 
fore ; for he was undoubtedly soured by his 
removal, and the excesses of the revolutionists 
had excited such horror in his mind as to make 
him no longer an impartial judge. His fore- 
casts and judgments on the military situation 
in particular, although occasionally right, were 
usually very wild. He fully appreciated Napo- 
leon's utter unscrupulousness and marvelous 
mendacity; but to the end of his life he re- 
mained unwilling to do justice to the emperor's 
still more remarkable warlike genius, going so 
far, after the final Russian campaign, as to 



304 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

speak of old Kutusoff as his equal. Indeed, in 
spite of one or two exceptions, — notably his 
predicting almost the exact date of the retreat 
from Moscow, — his criticisms on Napoleon's 
military operations do not usually stand much 
above the rather ludicrous level recently reached 
by Count Tolstoi. 

Morris was relieved by Monroe in August, 
1794, and left Paris for Switzerland in October. 
He stopped at Coppet and spent a day with 
Madame de Stael, where there was a little 
French society that lived at her expense and was 
as gay as circumstances would permit. He had 
never been particularly impressed with the much 
vaunted society of the salon, and this small sur- 
vival thereof certainly had no overpowering at- 
traction for him, if we may judge by the entry 
in his diar\' : " The road to her house is up-hill 
and execrable, and I think I shall not again go 
thither." Mankind was still blind to the grand 
beauty of the Alps, — it must be remembered 
that the admiration of mountain scenery is, to 
the shame of our forefathers be it said, almost 
a growth of the present centur^^, — and Morris 
took more interest in the Swiss population than 
in their surroundings. He wrote that in Switz- 
'erland the spirit of commerce had brought 
about a baseness of morals which nothing could 
cure but the same spirit carried still further: — 



STAY IN EUROPE. 305 

"It teaches eventually fair dealing as the most 
profitable dealing. The first lesson of trade is 
My son, get money. The second is, My son' 
get money, honestly if you can, but get money.' 
The third IS, My son, get money; but honestly, 
H you would get much money." 

He went to Great Britain in the following 
summer, and spent a year there. At one time 
he y,sited the North, staying with the Dukes 
of Argyle, Atholl and Montrose, and was very 
mucn pleased with Scotland, where everything 
he saw convinced him that the country was 
certain of a rapid and vigorous growth. On 
his return he stopped with the Bishop of Lan- 
daff, at Colgate Park. The bishop announced 
that he_ was a stanch opposition man, and a 
firm whig; to which statement Morris adds in 
his diary : "Let this be as it will, he is certainly 
a good landlord and a man of genius." 
_ But Morris was now a favored guest in min- 
isterial, even more than in opposition circles; 
he was considered to belong to what the czar 
afterwards christened the "parti sain de I'Eu- 
rope." He saw a good deal of both Pitt and 
(.renville, and was consulted by them not only 
about American, but also about European 
affairs ; and a number of favors, which he asked 
for some of his friends among the emigres, were 
granted. All his visits were not on business. 



306 GOVVERNEUR MORRIS. 

however ; as, for instance, on July 14tli : 
*' Dine at Mr. Pitt's. We sit down at six. 
Lords Grenville, Chatham, and another come 
later. The rale is established for six precisely, 
which is right, I think. The wines are good 
and the conversation flippant." Morris helped 
Grenville in a number of ways, at the Prussian 
court for instance ; and was even induced by 
him to write a letter to Washington, attempting 
to put the English attitude toward us in a 
good light. Washington, however, was no 
more to be carried off his feet in favor of the 
English than against them ; and the facts he 
brought out in his reply showed that Morris 
had rather lost his poise, and had been hurried 
into an action that was ill advised. He was 
quite often at court ; and relates a conversa- 
tion with the king, wherein that monarch's 
language seems to have been much such as tra- 
dition assigns him — short, abrupt sentences, 
repetitions, and the frequent u«e of " what." 

He also saw a good deal of the royalist refu- 
gees. Some of them he liked and was intimate 
with; but the majority disgusted him and made 
him utterl}^ impatient with their rancorous 
folly. He commented on the strange levity 
and wild negotiations of the Count d'Artois, 
and prophesied that his character was such as 
to make his projected attempt on La Vendue 



STAY IN EUROPE. 307 

hopeless from the start. Another day he was 
at the Marquis de Spinola's: " The conversation 
here, where our company consists of aristocrats 
of the first feather, turns on French affairs. 
They, at first, agree that union among the 
French is necessary. But when they come to 
particulars, they fly off and are mad. Madame 
Spinola would send the Duke of Orleans to 
Siberia. An abbe, a young man, talks much 
and loud, to show his esprit; and to hear them 
one would suppose they were quite at their ease 
in a petit souper de Paris,^^ Of that ponderous 
exile, the chief of the House of Bourbon, and 
afterwards Louis XVIII, he said that, in his 
opinion, he had nothing to do but to try to get 
shot, thereby redeeming by valor the foregone 
follies of his conduct. 

In June, 1796, Morris returned to the conti- 
nent, and started on another tour, in his own 
carriage, ; having spent some time himself in 
breaking in his young and restive horses to 
their task. He visited all the different capitals, 
atone time or another; among them, Berlin, 
where, as usual, he was very well received. 
For all his horror of Jacobinism, Morris was 
a thorough American, perfectly independent, 
without a particle of the snob in his disposition, 
and valuing his acquaintances for what they 
were, not for their titles. In his diary he puts 



808 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

down the Queen of England as " a well-bred, 
sensible woman," and the Empress of Austria 
as "a good sort of little woman," and contemp- 
tuously dismisses the Prussian king with a word, 
precisely as he does with any one else. One 
of the entries in his journal, while he was stay- 
ing in Berlin, offers a case in point. " July 23d, 
I dine, very much against my will, with Prince 
Ferdinand. I was engaged to a very agreeable 
party, but it seems the highnesses must never 
be denied, unless it be from indisposition. I 
had, however, written a note declining the in- 
tended honor ; but the messenger, upon looking 
at it, for it was a letter "patent, like the invita- 
tion, said he could not deliver it ; that nobody 
ever refused ; all of which I was informed of 
after he was gone. On consulting I found that 
I must go or give mortal offense, which last I 
have no inclination to do ; so I write another 
note, and send out to hunt up the messenger. 
While I am abroad this untoward incident is 
arranged, and of course I am at Bellevue." 
While at court on one occasion he met, and 
took a great fancy to, the daughter of the fa- 
mous Baroness Riedesel ; having been born in 
the United States, she had been christened 
America. 

In one of his conversations with the king, 
who was timid and hesitating, Morris told him 



STAY IN EUROPE. 309 

that the Au.strians would be all right if he 
would only lend them some Prussian generals 
— a remark upon which Jena and Auerstadt 
later on offered a curious commentary. He be- 
came very impatient with the king's inability to 
make up his mind ; and wrote to the Duchess 
of Cumberland that " the guardian angel of the 
French Republic kept him lingering on this side 
of the grave." He wrote to Lord Grenville 
that Prussia was " seeking little things by little 
means," and tluit the war with Poland was pop- 
ular " because the moral principles of a Prus- 
sian go to the possession of whatever he can 
acquire. And so little is he the slave of what 
he calls vulgar prejudice, that, give him oppor- 
tunity and means, and he will spare you the 
trouble of finding a pretext. This liberality 
of sentiment greatly facilitates negotiation, for 
it is not necessary to clothe propositions in hon- 
est and decent forms." Morris was a most start- 
ling phenomenon to the diplomatists of the day, 
trampling with utter disregard on all their he- 
reditary theories of finesse and cautious duplic- 
ity. The timid formalists, and more especially 
those who considered double-dealing as the 
legitimate, and in fact the only legitimate, 
weapon of their trade, were displeased with 
him ; but he was very highly thought of by 
such as could see the strength and originality 



310 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

of the views set forth in his frank, rather over- 
bold language. 

At Dresden he notes that he was late on the 
day set down for his presentation at court, 
owing to his valet having translated halh zwb'If 
as half past twelve. The Dresden picture gal- 
leries were the first that drew from him any 
very strong expressions of admiration. In the 
city were numbers of the emigres^ fleeing from 
their countrymen, and only permitted to stop 
in Saxony for a few days ; yet they were serene 
and gay, and spent their time in busy sight- 
seeing, examining everything curious which 
they could get at. Morris had become pretty 
well accustomed to the way in which they met 
fate ; but such lively resignation surj^rised even 
him, and he remarked that so great a calamity 
had never lighted on shoulders so well fitted to 
bear it. 

At Vienna he made a long stay, not leaving 
it until Januar}^, 1797. Here, as usual, he fra- 
ternized at once with the various diplomatists ; 
the English ambassador, Sir Morton Eden, in 
particular, going out of his way to show him 
every attention. The Austrian prime minis- 
ter, M. Thugut, was also very polite ; and so 
were the foreign ministers of all the powers. 
He was soon at home in the upper social circles 
of this German Paris ; but from the entiies in 



STAY IN EUROPE. 311 

his journal it is evident that he thought very 
little of Viennese society. He liked talking and 
the company of brilliant conversationalists, and 
he abominated gambling ; but in Vienna every 
one was so devoted to play that there was no 
conversation at all. He considered a dumb 
circle round a card- table as the dullest society 
in the world, and in Vienna there was little 
else. Nor was he impressed with the ability 
of the statesmen he met. He thought the Aus- 
trian nobles to be on the decline ; they stood 
for the dying feudal system. The great families 
had been squandering their riches with the 
most reckless extravagance, and were becoming 
broken and impoverished; and the imperial 
government was glad to see the humiliation of 
the haughty, nobles, not perceiving that, if pre- 
served, they would act as a buffer between it 
and the new power beginning to make itself 
felt throughout Europe, and would save the 
throne if not from total overthrow, at least 
from shocks so fierce as greatly to weaken it. 

Morris considered Prince Esterhazy as an 
archtypical representative of the class. He was 
captain of the noble Hungarian Guard, a small 
body of tall, handsome men on fiery steeds, 
magnificently caparisoned. The Prince, as its 
commander, wore a Hungarian dress, scarlet, 
with fur cape and cuffs, and yellow morocco 



312 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

boots ; ever3^tbing embroidered with pearls, 
four hundred and seventy large ones, and many 
thousand small, but all put on in good taste. 
He had a collar of large diamonds, a plume of 
diamonds in his cap ; and his sword-hilt, scab- 
bard, and spurs were inlaid with the same 
precious stones. His horse was equally be- 
jeweled ; steed and rider, with their trappings, 
" were estimated at a value of a quarter of a 
million dollars." Old Bliicher would surely 
have considered the pair '' very fine plunder." 

The Prince was reported to be nominally the 
richest subject in Europe, with a revenue that 
during the Turkish war went up to a million 
guilders annually; yet he' was hopelessly in 
debt already and getting deeper every year. 
He lived in great magnificence, but was by no 
means noted for lavish hospitality; all his ex- 
travagance was reserved for himself, especially 
for purposes of display. His Vienna stable 
contained a hundred and fifty horses ; and dur- 
ing a six weeks' residence in Frankfort, where 
he was ambassador at the time of an imperial 
coronation, he spent eighty thousand pounds. 
Altogether, an outsider may be pardoned for 
not at first seeing precisely what useful function 
such a merely gorgeous being performed in the 
body politic ; yet when summoned before the 
bar of the new world-forces, Esterhazy and his 



STAY IN EUROPE. 313 

kind showed that birds of such fine feathers 
sometimes had beaks and talons as well, and 
knew how to use them, the craven flight of the 
French noblesse to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing. 

Morris was often at court, where the con- 
stant theme of conversation was naturally the 
struggle with the French armies under Moreau 
and Bonaparte. After one of these mornings 
he mentions : " The levee was oddly arranged, 
all the males being in one apartment, through 
which the Emperor passes in going to chapel, 
and returns the same way with the Empress 
and imperial family ; after which they go 
through their own rooms to the ladies as- 
sembled on the other side." 

The English members of the Corps Diplo- 
matique in all the European capitals were es- 
pecially civil to him ; and he liked them more 
than their continental brethren. But for some 
of their young tourist countrymen he cared 
less ; and it is curious to see that the ridicule 
to which Americans have rightly exposed them- 
selves by their absurd fondness for uniforms 
and for assuming military titles to which they 
have no warrant, was no less deservedly earned 
by the English at the end of the last century. 
One of Morris's friends, Baron Groshlaer, being, 
like the other Viennese, curious to know the 



314 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

object of his stay, — they guessed aright that 
he wished to get Lafayette liberated, — at last 
almost asked him outright about it. " Finally 
I tell him that the only difference between me 
and the young Englishmen, of whom there is 
a swarm here, is, that I seek instruction with 
gray hairs and they with brown. . . . At the 
Archduchess's one of the little princes, brother 
to the Emperor, and who is truly an arcA-duke, 
asks me to explain to him the different uniforms 
worn by the young English, of whom there are 
a great number here, all in regimentals. Some 
of these belong to no corps at all, and the others 
to yeomanry, fencibles and the like, all of 
which purport to be raised for the defense of 
their country in case she should be invaded; but 
now, when the invasion seems most imminent, 
they are abroad, and cannot be made to feel 
the ridiculous indecency of appearing in regi- 
mentals. Sir M. Eden and others have given 
them the broadest hints without the least effect. 
One of them told me that all the world should 
not laugh him out of his regimentals. I 
bowed. ... I tell the prince that I really am 
not able to answer his question, but that, in 
general, their dresses I believe are worn for 
convenience in traveling. He smiles at this. 
... If I were an Englishman I should be hurt 
at these exhibitions, and as it is I am sorry for 



STAY IN EUROPE. 315 

them. ... I find that here they assume it as 
unquestionable that the young men of England 
have a right to adjust the ceremonial of 
Vienna. The political relations of the two 
countries induce the good company here to treat 
them with politeness ; but nothing prevents 
their being laughed at, as I found the other 
evening at Madame de Groshlaer's, where the 
young women as well as the girls were very 
merry at the expense of these young men." 

After leaving Vienna he again passed 
through Berlin, and in a conversation with the 
king he foreshadowed curiously the state of 
politics a century later, and showed that he 
thoroughly appreciated the cause that would in 
the end reconcile the traditional enmity of the 
Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs. " After some 
trifling things I tell him that I have just seen 
his best friend. He asks who? and, to his 
great surprise, I reply, the Emperor. He 
speaks of him well personally, and I observe 
that he is a very honest young man, to which 
his Majesty replies by asking, " Mais, que 
pensez vous de Thugut." " Quant a cela, c'est 
une autre affaire, sire." I had stated the in- 
terest, which makes him and the Emperor good 
friends, to be their mutual apprehensions from 
Russia. "But suppose we all three unite?" 
" Ce sera un diable de fricassee, sire, si vous 
vous mettez tons les trois a casser les oeufs." 



316 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

At Brunswick he was received with great 
hospitality, the Duke, and particularly the 
Duchess Dowager, the King of England's 
sister, treating him very hospitably. He here 
saw General Riedesel, with whom he was 
most friendly ; the general in the course of 
conversation inveighed bitterly against Bur- 
goyne. He went to Munich also, where he was 
received on a very intimate footing by Count 
Rumford, then the great power in Bavaria, 
who was busily engaged in doing all he could 
to better the condition of his country. Morris 
was much interested in his reforms. They 
were certainly needed ; the Count told his 
friend that on assuuiing the reins of power, the 
abuses to be remedied were beyond belief — 
for instance, there was one regiment of cavalry 
that had five field officers and only three 
horses. With some of the friends that Morris 
niade — such as the Duchess of Cumberland, 
the Princess de la Tour et Taxis and others — 
he corresponded until the end of his life. 

While at Vienna he again did all he could 
to get Lafayette released from prison, where 
his wife was confined with him ; but in vain. 
Madame de Lafayette's sister, the Marquise de 
Montagu, and Madame de Stael, both wrote 
him the most urgent appeals to do what he 
could for the prisoners; the former writing, 



STAY IN EUROPE. 317 

" My sister is in danger of losing the life you 
saved in the prisons of Paris . . . has not he 
whom Europe numbers among those citizens 
of whom North America ought to be most 
proud, has not he the right to make himself 
heard in favor of a citizen of the United States, 
and of a wife, whose life belongs to him, since 
he has preserved it?" Madame de Stael felt 
the most genuine grief for Lafayette, and very 
sincere respect for Morris ; and in her letters 
to the latter she displayed both sentiments with 
a lavish exaggeration that hardly seems in good 
taste. If Morris had needed a spur the letters 
would have supplied it ; but the task was an 
impossible one, and Lafayette was not released 
until the peace in 1797, when he was turned 
over to the American consul at Hamburg, in 
Morris's presence. 

Morris was able to render more effectual help 
to an individual far less worthy of it than La- 
fayette. This was the then Duke of Orleans, 
afterwards King Louis Philippe, who had fled 
from France with Dumouriez. Morris's old 
friend, Madame de Flahaut, appealed to him 
almost hysterically on the duke's behalf ; and 
he at once did even more than she requested, 
giving the duke money wherewith to go to 
America, and also furnishing him with unlimited 
credit at his own New York banker's, during his 



318 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

wanderings in the United States. This was 
done for the sake of the Duchess of Orleans, 
to whom Morris was devotedly attached, not 
for the sake of the duke himself. The latter 
knew this perfectly, writing: *^Your kindness 
is a blessing I owe to my mother and to our 
friend " (Madame de Flahaut). The bourgeois 
king admirably represented the meanest, small- 
est side of the bourgeois character ; he was not 
a bad man, but he was a very petty and con- 
temptible one ; had he been bom in a different 
station of life, he would have been just the in- 
dividual to take a prominent part in local tem- 
perance meetings, while he sanded the sugar 
he sold in his corner grocery. His treatment 
of Morris's loan was characteristic. When he 
came into his rights again, at the Restoration, 
he at first appeared to forget his debt entirel}^, 
and when his memory was jogged, he merely 
sent Morris the original sum, without a word 
of thanks ; whereupon Morris, rather nettled, 
and as prompt to stand up for his rights against 
a man in prosperity as he had been to help him 
when in adversity, put the matter in the hands 
of his lawyer, through whom he notified Louis 
Philippe that if the affair was to be treated on 
a merely business basis, it should then be treated 
in a strictly business way, and the interest for 
the twenty years that had gone by should be 



STAY IN EUROPE. 319 

forwarded also. This was accordingly done, 
although not until after Morris's death, the en- 
tire sum refunded being seventy thousand 
francs. 

Morris brought his complicated business af- 
fairs in Europe to a close in 1798, and sailed 
from Hamburg on October 4th of that year, 
reaching New York after an exceedingly tedi- 
ous and disagreeable voyage of eighty days. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 

Morris was very warmly greeted on his re- 
turn ; and it was evident that the length of his 
stay abroad had in nowise made him lose 
ground with his friends at home. His natural 
affiliations were all with the Federalist party, 
which he immediately joined. 

During the year 1799 he did not take much 
part in politics, as he was occupied in getting 
his business affairs in order and in putting to 
rights his estates at Morrisania. The old manor 
house had become such a crazy, leaky affair 
that he tore it down and built a new one ; a 
great, roomy building, not in the least showy, 
but solid, comfortable, and in perfect taste ; 
having, across the tree-clad hills of Westchester, 
a superb view of the Sound, with its jagged 
coast and capes and islands. 

Although it was so long since he had prac- 
ticed law, he was shortly engaged in a very im- 
portant case that was argued for eight days 
before the Court of Errors in Albany. Few 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 321 

trials in the State of New York have ever 
brought together such a number of men of re- 
markable legal ability ; for among the lawyers 
engaged on one side or the other were Morris, 
Hamilton, Burr, Robert Livingstone, and Troup. 
There were some sharp passages of arms : and 
the trial of wits between Morris and Hamilton 
in particular were so keen as to cause a passing 
coolness. 

During the ten years that had gone by since 
Morris sailed for Europe, the control of the 
national government had been in the hands of 
the Federalists ; when he returned, party bitter- 
ness was at the highest pitch, for the Democrats 
were preparing to make the final push for 
power which should overthrow and ruin their 
antagonists. Four-fifths of the talent, ability, 
and good sense of the country were to be found 
in the Federalist ranks ; for the Federalists 
had held their own so far, by sheer force of 
courage and intellectual vigor, over foes in real- 
ity more numerous. Their great prop had been 
"Washington. His colossal influence was to the 
end decisive in party contests, and he had in 
fact, although hardly in name, almost entirely 
abandoned his early attempts at non-partisan- 
ship, had grown to distrust Madison as he long 
before had distrusted Jefferson, and had come 
into constantly closer relations with their ene- 



322 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

mies. His death diminished greatly the chances 
of Federalist success ; there were two other 
causes at work that destroyed them entirely. 

One of these was the ver}^ presence in the 
dominant party of so many men nearly equal in 
strong will and great intellectual power ; their 
ambitions and theories clashed ; even the lofti- 
ness of their aims, and their disdain of every- 
thing small, made them poor politicians, and 
with Washington out of the way there was no 
one commander to overawe the rest and to keep 
down the fierce bickerings constantly arising 
among them ; while in the other party there 
was a single leader, Jefferson, absolutely with- 
out a rival, but supported by a host of sharp 
political workers, most skillful in marshaling 
that unwieldy and hitherto disunited host of 
voters who were inferior in intelligence to their 
fellows. 

The second cause lay deep in the nature of 
the Federalist organization : it was its distrust 
of the people. This was the fatally weak 
streak in Federalism. In a government such as 
ours it was a foregone conclusion that a party 
which did not believe in the people would 
sooner or later be thrown from power unless 
there was an armed break-up of the system. 
The distrust was felt, and of course excited 
corresponding and intense hostility. Had the 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 323 

Federalists been united, and had they freely 
trusted in the people, the latter would have 
shown that the trust was well founded ; but 
there was no hope for leaders who suspected 
each other and feared their followers. 

Morris landed just as the Federalist reaction, 
brought about by the conduct of France, had 
spent itself, — thanks partly to some inoppor- 
tune pieces of insolence from England, in 
which country, as Morris once wrote to a foreign 
friend, " on a toujours le bon esprit de vouloir 
prendre les mouches avec du vinaigre." The 
famous alien and sedition laws were exciting 
great disgust, and in Virginia and Kentucky 
Jefferson was using them as handles wherewitli 
to guide seditious agitation — not that he be- 
lieved in sedition, but because he considered it 
good party policy, for the moment, to excite 
it. The parties hated each other with rancor- 
ous virulence ; the newspapers teemed with the 
foulest abuse of public men, accusations of 
financial dishonesty were rife, Washington him- 
self not being spared, and the most scurrilous 
personalities were bandied about between the 
different editors. The Federalists were split 
into two factions, one following the President, 
Adams, in his efforts to keep peace with France, 
if it could be done with honor, while the others, 
under Hamilton's lead, wished war at once. 



324 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

Pennsylvanian politics were already very low. 
The leaders who had taken control were men of 
mean capacity and small moralit}^, and the 
State was not only becoming rapidly democratic 
but was also drifting along in a disorganized, 
pseudo-jacobinical, half insurrectionary kind of 
way that would have boded ill for its future 
had it not been fettered by the presence of 
healthier communities round about it. New 
England was the only part of the community, 
excepting Delaware, w^here Federalism was on 
a perfectly sound footing ; for in that section 
there was no caste spirit, the leaders and their 
followers were thoroughly in touch, and all the 
citizens, shrewd, thrifty, independent, were used 
to self-government, and fully awake to the fact 
that honesty and order are the prerequisites of 
liberty. Yet even here Democracy had made 
some inroads. 

South of the Potomac the Federalists had lost 
ground rapidly. Virginia was still a battlefield ; 
as long as Washington lived, his tremendous 
personal influence acted as a brake on the dem- 
ocratic advance, and the state's greatest orator, 
Patrick Henry, had halted beside the grave to 
denounce the seditious schemes of the disunion 
agitators with the same burning, thrilling elo- 
quence that, thirty years before, had stirred to 
their depths the hearts of his hearers when he 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 325 

bade defiance to the tyrannous might of the 
British king. But when these two men were 
dead, Marshall, — though destined, as chief and 
controlling influence in the third division of our 
governmental system, to mould the whole of 
that system on the lines of Federalist thought, 
and to prove that a sound judiciary could 
largely affect an unsound executive and legisla- 
ture, — even Marshall could not, single-handed, 
stem the current that had gradually gathered 
head. Virginia stands easily first among all 
our commonwealths for the statesmen and war- 
riors she has brought forth ; and it is note- 
worthy that during the long contest between 
the nationalists and separatists, which forms 
the central fact in our history for the first 
three quarters of a century of our national life, 
she gave leaders to both sides at the two great 
crises : Washington and Marshall to the one, 
and Jefferson to the other, when the question 
was one of opinion as to whether the Union 
should be built up ; and when the appeal to 
arms was made to tear it down, Farragut and 
Thomas to the north, Lee and Jackson to the 
south. 

There was one eddy in the tide of demo- 
cratic success that flowed so strongly to the 
southward. This was in South Carolina. The 
fierce little Palmetto state has always been a 



326 COUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

free lance among her southern sisters ; for 
instance, though usually ultra-democratic, she 
was hostile to the two great democratic chiefs, 
Jefferson and Jackson, though both were from 
the south. At the time that Morris came 
home, the brilliant little group of Federalist 
leaders within her bounds, headed by men of 
national renown like Pinckney and Harper, 
kept her true to Federalism by downright force 
of intellect and integrity ; for they were among 
the purest as well as the ablest statesmen of 
the day. 

New York had been going through a series 
of bitter party contests ; any one examining a 
file of papers of that day will come to the con- 
clusion that party spirit was even more violent 
and unreasonable then than now. The two 
great Federalist leaders, Hamilton and Jay, 
stood head and shoulders above all their demo- 
cratic competitors, and they were backed by the 
best men in the state, like Rufus King, Schuy- 
ler and others. But, though as orators and 
statesmen they had no rivals, they were very 
deficient in the arts of political management. 
Hamilton's imperious haughtiness had alienated 
the powerful family of the Livingstones, who 
had thrown in their lot with the Clintonians ; 
and a still more valuable ally to the latter had 
arisen in that consummate master of "machine" 



IN TEE UNITED STATES SENATE. 327 

politics, Aaron Burr. In 1792, Jay, then chief 
justice of the United States, had run for gov- 
ernor against Clinton, and had received the 
majority of the votes ; but had been counted 
out by the returning board in spite of the pro- 
test of its four Federalist members — Ganse- 
voort, Roosevelt, Jones, and Sands. The indig- 
nation was extreme,- and only Jay's patriotism 
and good sense prevented an outbreak. How- 
ever, the memory of the fraud remained fresh 
in the minds of the citizens, and at the next 
election for governor he was chosen by a heavy 
majority, having then just come back from his 
mission to England. Soon afterwards his treaty 
was published, and excited a whirlwind of in- 
dignation ; it was only ratified in the senate 
through Washington's great influence, backed 
by the magnificent oratory of Fisher Ames, 
whose speech on this occasion, when he was ^^^j. f; 
almost literally on his death-bed, ranks among 
the half dozen greatest of our country. The 
treaty was very objectionable in certain points, 
but it was most necessary to our well-being, 
and Jay was probably the only American who 
could have negotiated it. As with the Ashbur- 
ton treaty many years later, extreme sections in 
England attacked it as fiercely as did the ex- 
treme sections here ; and Lord Sheffield voiced 
their feelings when he hailed the war of 1812 



328 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

as offering a chance to England to get back the 
advantages out of which " Jay had duped Gren- 
ville." 

But the clash with France shortly afterwards 
swept away the recollection of the treat}^, and 
Jay was reelected in 1798. One of the argu- 
ments, by the way, which was used against him 
in the canvass was that he was an abolitionist. 
But, in spite of his reelection, the New York 
Democrats were steadily gaining ground. 

Such was the situation when Morris returned. 
He at once took high rank among the Federal- 
ists, and in April, 1800, just before the final 
wreck of their part}^, was chosen by them to 
fill an unexpired term of three years in the 
United States Senate. Before this he had made 
it evident that his sympathies la}^ with Hamil- 
ton and those who did not think highly of 
Adams. He did not deem it wise to renomi- 
nate the latter for the Presidency. He had 
even written to Washington, earnestly beseech- 
ing him to accept the nomination ; but Wash- 
ington died a day or two after the letter was 
sent. In spite of the jarring between the lead- 
ers, the Federalists nominated Adams and 
Pinckney. In the ensuing Presidential election 
many of the party chiefs, notably Marshall of 
Virginia, already a strong Adams man, faith- 
fully stood by the ticket in its entirety; but 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 329 

Hamilton, Morris, and many others at the 
North probably hoped in their hearts that, by 
the aid of the curious electoral system which 
then existed, some chance would put the great 
Carolinian in the first place and make him 
President. Indeed, there is little question that 
this might have been done, had not Pinckney, 
one of the most hio^h-minded and disinterested 
statesmen we have ever had, emphatically de- 
clined to profit in any way by the hurting of 
the grim old Puritan. 

The house thus divided against itself natu- 
rally fell, and Jefferson was chosen President. 
It was in New York that the decisive struggle 
took place, for that was the pivotal state ; and 
there the Democrats, under the lead of the Liv- 
ingstones and Clintons, but above all by the 
masterly political manoeuvres of Aaron Burr, 
gained a crushing victory. Hamilton, stung to 
madness by the defeat, and sincerely believing 
that the success of his opponents would be fatal 
to the republic, — for the two parties hated each 
other with a blind fury unknown to the organi- 
zations of the present day, — actually proposed 
to Jay, the governor, to nullify the action of the 
people by the aid of the old legislature, a Fed- 
eralist body, which was still holding over, al- 
though the members of its successor had been 
chosen. Jay, as pure as he was brave, refused 



330 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

to sanction any such scheme of unworthy parti- 
sanship. It is worth noting that the victors in 
this election introduced for the first time the 
"spoils system," in all its rigor, into our state 
affairs ; imitating the bad example of Pennsyl- 
vania a year or two previously. 

When the Federalists in Congress, into which 
body the choice for President had been thrown, 
took up Burr, as a less objectionable alternative 
than Jefferson, Morris, much to his credit, 
openly and heartily disapproved of the move- 
ment, and was sincerely glad that it failed. For 
he thought Burr far the more dangerous man of 
the two, and, moreover, did not believe that 
the evident intention of the people should be 
thwarted. Both he and Hamilton, on this oc- 
casion, acted more wisely and more honestly 
than did most of their heated fellow-partisans. 
Writing to the latter, the former remarked: 
" It is dangerous to be impartial in politics ; 
you, who are temperate in drinking, have never 
perhaps noticed the awkward situation of a 
man who continues sober after the company are 
drunk." 

Morris joined the Senate at Philadelphia in 
Ma}^ 1800, but it almost immediately adjourned, 
to meet at Washington in November, when he 
was again present. Washington, as it then 
was, was a place whose straggling squalor has 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 331 

often been described. Morris wrote to the 
Princess de hi Tour et Taxis, that it needed 
nothing " but houses, cellars, kitchens, well-in- 
formed men, amiable women, and other little 
trifles of the kind to make the city perfect ; " 
that it was " the very best city in the world for 
a future residence," but that as he was " not 
one of those good people whom we call poster- 
ity," he would meanwhile like to live some- 
where else. 

During his three years' term in the Senate he 
was one of the strong pillars of the Federalist 
party ; but he was both too independent and 
too erratic to act always within strict party 
lines, and while he was an ultra-Federalist on 
some points, he openly abandoned his fellows 
on others. He despised Jefferson as a tricky 
and incapable theorist, skillful in getting votes, 
but in nothing else ; a man who believed *' in 
the wisdom of mobs, and the moderation of 
Jacobins," and who found himself " in the 
wretched plight of being forced to turn out 
good officers to make room for the unworthy." 

After the election that turned them out of 
power, but just before their opponents took of- 
fice, the Federalists in the Senate and House 
passed the famous judiciary bill, and Adams 
signed it. It provided for a number of new 
federal judges to act throughout the states, 



332 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

while the supreme court was retained as the 
ultimate court of decision. It was an excellent 
measure, inasmuch as it simplified the work of 
.the judiciary, saved the highest branch from 
useless traveling, prevented the calendars from 
being choked with w^ork, and supplied an up- 
right federal judiciary to certain districts where 
the local judges could not be depended upon to 
act honestly. On the other hand, the Federal- 
ists employed it as a means to keep themselves 
partly in power, after the nation had decided 
that they should be turned out. Although the 
Democrats had bitterly opposed it, yet if, as was 
only right, the offices created by it had been left 
vacant until Jefferson came in, it would prob- 
ably have been allowed to stand. But Adams, 
most improperly, spent the last hours of his ad- 
ministration in putting in the new judges. 

Morris, who heartily championed the measure, 
wrote his reasons for so doing to Livingstone ; 
giving, with his usual frankness, those that 
were political and improper, as w^ell as those 
based on some public polic}^, but apparently not 
appreciating the gravity of the charges he so 
lightly admitted. He said: "The new judi- 
ciary bill may have, and doubtless has, many 
little faults, but it answers the double purpose 
of bringing justice near to men's doors, and of 
giving additional fibre to the root of govern- 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 333 

ment. You must not, my friend, judge of other 
states by your own. Depend on it, that in 
some parts of this Union, justice cannot be 
readily obtained in the state courts." So far, 
he was all right, and the truth of his statements, 
and the soundness of his reasons, could not be 
challenged as to the propriety of the law itself ; 
but he was much less happy in giving his views 
of the way in which it would be carried out : 
." That the leaders of the federal party may use 
this opportunity to provide for friends and ad- 
herents is, I think, probable ; and if they were 
my enemies, I should blame them for it. 
Whether I should do the same thing myself is 
another question. . . . They are about to ex- 
perience a heavy gale of adverse wind ; can 
they be blamed for casting many anchors to 
hold their ship through the storm ? " Most 
certainly they should be blamed for casting 
this particular kind of anchor ; it was a very 
gross outrage for them to " provide for friends 
and adherents " in such a manner. 

The folly of their action was seen at once ; 
for they had so maddened the Democrats that 
the latter repealed the act as soon as they came 
into power. This also was of course all wrong, 
and was a simple sacrifice of a measure of good 
government to partisan rage. Morris led the 
fight against it, deeming the repeal not only in 



334 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

the highest degree unwise but also unconstitu- 
tional. After the repeal was accomplished, the 
knowledge that their greed to grasp office under 
the act was probably the cause of the loss of an 
excellent law, must have been rather a bitter 
cud for the Federalists to chew. Morris always 
took an exaggerated view of the repeal, regard- 
ing it as a death-blow to the constitution. It 
was certainly a most unfortunate affair through- 
out ; and much of the blame attaches to the Fed- 
eralists, although still more to their antagonists. 
The absolute terror with which even mod- 
erate Federalists had yiewed the victory of the 
Democrats was in a certain sense justifiable ; 
for the leaders who led the Democrats to 
triumph Avere the very men who had fought 
tooth and nail against every measure necessary 
to make us a free, orderly, and powerful nation. 
But the safety of the nation really lay in the 
very fact that the policy hitherto advocated by 
the now victorious party had embodied princi- 
ples so wholly absurd in practice that it was 
out of the question to apply them at all to the 
actual running of the government. Jefferson 
could write or speaks — and could feel too — the 
most high-sounding sentiments; but once it 
came to actions he was absolutely at sea, and 
on almost every matter — especially where he 
did well — he had to fall back on the Federalist 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 335 

theories. Almost the only important point on 
which he allowed himself free scope was that of 
the national defenses ; and here, particularly as 
regards the navy, he worked very serious harm 
to the country. Otherwise he generally adopted 
and acted on the views of his predecessors ; 
as Morris said, the Democrats " did more to 
strengthen the executive than Federalists dared 
think of, even in Washington's day." As a 
consequence, though the nation would certainly 
have been better off if men like Adams or 
Pinckney had been retained at the head of af- 
fairs, yet the change resulted in far less harm 
than it bade fair to. 

On the other hand the Federalists cut a very 
sorry figure in opposition. We have never had 
another party so little able to stand adversity. 
They lost their temper first and they lost their 
principles next, and actually began to take up 
the heresies discarded by their adversaries. 
Morris himself, untrue to all his previous record, 
advanced various states-rights doctrines ; and 
the Federalists, the men who had created the 
Union, ended their days under the grave sus- 
picion of having desired to break it up. Morris 
even opposed, and on a close vote temporarily 
defeated, the perfectly unobjectionable proposi- 
tion to change the electoral system by designat- 
ing the candidates for President and Vice-Pres- 



336 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

ident ; the reason lie gave was that he believed 
parties should be forced to nominate both of 
their best men, and that he regarded the Jef- 
ferson-Burr tie as a beautiful object-lesson for 
teaching this point ! 

On one most important question, however, he 
cut loose from his party, who were entirely in 
the wrong, and acted with the administration, 
who were behaving in strict accordance with 
Federalist precepts. This was in reference to 
the treaty by which we acquired Louisiana. 

While in opposition, one of the most dis- 
creditable features of the Republican-Demo- 
cratic party had been its servile truckling to 
France, which at times drove it into open dis- 
loyalty to America. Indeed this subservience 
to foreigners was a feature of our early party 
history ; and the most confirmed pessimist 
must admit that, as regards patriotism and in- 
dignant intolerance of foreign control, the party 
organizations of to-day are immeasurably supe- 
rior to those of eighty or ninety years back. 
But it was only while in opposition that either 
party was ready to throw itself into the arms 
of outsiders. Once the Democrats took the 
reins they immediately changed their attitude. 
The West demanded New Orleans and the 
valley of the Mississippi ; and what it de- 
manded it was determined to get. When we 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 337 

only had the decaying weakness of Spain to 
deal with, there was no cause for hurry ; but 
when Louisiana was ceded to France, at the 
time when the empire of Napoleon was a match 
for all the rest of the world put together, the 
country was up in arms at once. 

The Administration promptly began to nego- 
tiate for the purchase of Louisiana. Morris 
backed them up heartily, thus splitting off 
from the bulk of the Fedei-alists, and earnestly 
advocated far stronger measures tlian had been 
taken. He believed that so soon as tlie French 
should establish themselves in New Orleans, 
we should have a war with them ; he knew it 
would be impossible for the haughty chiefs of 
a military despotism long to avoid collisions 
with the reckless and warlike backwoodsmen 
of the border. Nor would he have been sorry 
had such a war taken place. He said that it 
was a necessity to us, for we were dwindling 
into a race of mere speculators and driveling 
philosophers, whereas ten years of warfare 
would bring forth a crop of heroes and states- 
men, fit timber out of which to hew an em- 
pire. 

Almost his last act in the United States Sen- 
ate was to make a most powerful and telling 
speech in favor of at once occupying the terri- 
tory in dispute, and bidding defiance to Na- 



338 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

poleon. He showed that we could not submit 
to having so dangerous a neighbor as France, 
an ambitious and conquering nation, at whose 
head was the greatest warrior of the age. With 
ringing emphasis he chiimed the western re- 
gions as peculiarly our heritage, as the prop- 
erty of the fathers of America which they held 
in trust for their children. It was true that 
France was then enjoying the peace which she 
had wrung from the gathered armies of all 
Europe ; yet he advised us to fling down the 
gauntlet fearlessly, not hampering ourselves by 
an attempt at alliance with Great Britain or 
any other power, but resting confident that, if 
America was heartily in earnest, she would be 
able to hold her own in. any struggle. The cost 
of the conquest he brushed contemptuously 
aside; he considered "that counting-house 
policy, which sees nothing but money, a poor, 
short-sighted, half-witted, mean, and miserable 
thing, as far removed from wisdom as is a 
monkey from a man." He wished for peace ; 
but he did not believe the Emperor would 
yield us the territory, and he knew that his 
fellow-representatives, and practically all the 
American people, were determined to fight for 
it if they could get it in no other way ; there- 
fore he advised them to begin at once, and 
gain forthwith what they wanted, and perhaps 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 339 

their example would inspirit Europe to rise 
against the tyrant. 

It was bold advice, and if need had arisen it 
would have been followed ; for we were bound 
to have Louisiana, if not by bargain and sale 
then by fair shock of arms. But Napoleon 
yielded, and gave us the land for fifteen mil- 
lions, of which, said Morris, " I am content to 
pay my share to deprive foreigners of all pre- 
text for entering our interior country ; if noth- 
ing else were gained by the treaty, that alone 
would satisfy me." 

Morris's term as senator expired on March 
4th, 1803, and he was not reelected ; for New 
York State had passed into the hands of the 
Democrats. But he still continued to play a 
prominent part in public affairs, for he was the 
leader in starting the project of the Erie canal. 
It was to him that we owe the original idea of 
this great water-way, for he thought of it and 
planned it out long before any one else. He 
had publicly proposed it during the revolution- 
ary period; in 1803 he began the agitation in 
its favor that culminated in its realization, and 
he was chairman of the Canal Commissioners 
.from the time of their appointment, in 1810, 
until within a few months of his death. The 
three first reports of the Commission were all 
from his pen. As Stephen Van Rensselaer, 



340 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

himself one of the commissioners from the 
beginning, said, " Gouverneur Morris was the 
father of our great canal." He hoped ultimate- 
ly to make it a ship canal. While a member 
of the commission, he not only discharged his 
duties as such with characteristic energy and 
painstaking, but he also did most effective out- 
side work in advancing the enterprise, while 
he mastered the subject more thoroughly in all 
its details than did any other man. 

He spent most of his time at Morrisania, but 
traveled for two or three months every sum- 
mer, sometimes going out to the then "far 
West," along the shores of Lakes Erie and On- 
tario, and once descending the St. Lawrence. 
At home he spent his time tilling his farm, 
reading, receiving visits from his friends, and 
carrying on a wide correspondence on business 
and politics. Jay's home was within driving 
distance, and the two fine old fellows saw much 
of each other. On the 25th of December, 1809, 
Morris, tlien fift^^-six years old, married Miss 
Anne Gary Randolph, a member of the famous 
Vii-ginia family ; he was very happy wdth her, 
and by her he had one son. Three weeks after 
the marriage he wrote Jay a pressing request 
to visit him : " I pray you will, with your 
daughters, embark immediately in your 'sleigh, 
after a very early breakfast, and push on so as 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 341 

to reach this house in the evening. My wife 
sends her love, and says she longs to receive 
her husband's friend ; that his sickness must be 
no excuse, for she will nurse him. Come, then, 
and see your old friend perform his part in an 
old-fashioned scene of domestic enjoyment." 
Jay was very simple in his way of living ; but 
Morris was rather formal. When he visited 
his friend he always came with his valet, was 
shown straight to his room without seeing any 
one, dressed himself with scrupulous nicety, — 
being very particular about his powdered hair, 
— and then came down to see his host. 

Although his letters generally dealt with 
public matters, he sometimes went into home 
details. He thus wrote an amusing letter to a 
good friend of his, a lady, who was desirous, 
following the custom of the day, to send her 
boy to what was called a " college " at an ab- 
surdly early age ; he closed by warning her 
that " these children of eleven, after a four 
years' course, in which they may learn to smat- 
ter a little of everything, become bachelors of 
arts before they know how to button their 
clothes, and are the most troublesome and use- 
less, sometimes the most pernicious, little ani- 
mals that ever infested a commonwealth." 

At one time he received as his guest Moreau, 
the exiled French general, then seeking service 



342 GO U VERNE UR MORRIS. 

in the United States. Writing in his diary an 
account of the visit, he says ; " In the course 
of our conversation, touching very gently the 
idea of his serving (in case of necessity) against 
France, he declares frankly that, when the oc- 
casion arrives, he shall feel no reluctance ; that 
France having cast him out, he is a citizen of 
the country where he lives, and has the same 
right to follow his trade here as any other man." 
He took the keenest pleasure in his life, and 
always insisted that America was the pleasant- 
est of all places in wdiich to live. Writing to 
a friend abroad, and mentioning that he re- 
spected the people of Britain, but did not find 
them congenial, he added : " But were the man- 
ners of those countries as pleasant as the people 
are respectable, I should never be reconciled to 
their summers. Compare the uninterrupted 
warmth and splendor of America, from the first 
of May to the last of September, and her au- 
tumn, truly celestial, with your shivering June, 
your July and August sometimes w^arm but 
often wet, your uncertain September, your 
gloomy October, and your dismal November. 
Compare these things, and then say how a man 
who prizes the charm of Nature can think of 
making the exchange. If you were to pass one 
autumn with us, you would not give it for the 
best six months to be found in any other coun- 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 343 

try. . . . There is a brilliance in our atmos- 
phere of which you can have no idea." 

He thoroughly appreciated the marvelous 
future that lay before the race on this continent. 
Writing in 1801, he says : " As yet we only 
crawl along the outer shell of our country. The 
interior excels the part we inhabit in soil, in 
climate, in everything. The proudest empire 
in Europe is but a bauble compared to what 
America zvill be, must be, in the course of two 
centuries, perhaps of one ! " And again, " With 
respect to this country, calculation outruns 
fancy, and fact outruns calculation." 

Until his hasty, impulsive temper became so 
soured by partisanship as to warp his judg- 
ment, Morris remained as well satisfied with 
the people and the system of government as 
with the land itself. In one of his first letters 
after his return to America he wrote : " There 
is a fund of good sense and calmness of charac- 
ter here, which will, I think, avoid all danger- 
ous excesses. We are free : we know it : and 
we know how to continue free." On another 
occasion, about the same time, he said : *' Nil 
desijerandum de repuhlica is a sound principle." 
Again, in the middle of Jefferson's first term : 
" We have indeed a set of madmen in the ad- 
ministration, and they will do many foolish 
things ; but there is a vigorous vegetative 



844 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

principle at the root which will make our tree 
flourish, let the winds blow as they may." 

He at first took an equally just view of our 
political system, saying that in adopting a re- 
publican form of government he "not only took 
it, as a man does his wife, for better or worse, 
but, what few men do with their wdves, know- 
ing all its bad qualities." He observed that 
there was always a counter current in human 
affairs, which opposed alike good and evil. 
" Thus the good we hope is seldom attained, 
and the evil we fear is rarely realized. The 
leaders of faction must for their own sakes avoid 
errors of enormous magnitude ; so that, while 
the republican form lasts, we shall be fairly 
well governed." He thought this form the 
one best suited for us, and remarked that "every 
kind of government was liable to evil ; that the 
best was that which had fewest faults ; that 
the excellence even of that best depended 
more on its fitness for the nation where it was 
established than on intrinsic perfection." He 
denounced, with a fierce scorn that they richly 
merit, the despicable demagogues and witless 
fools who teach that in all cases the voice of the 
majority must be implicitly obeyed, and that 
public men have only to carry out its will, and 
thus *' acknowledge themselves the willing in- 
struments of folly and vice. They declare that 



IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, 345 

in order to please the people they will, regardless 
alike of what conscience may dictate or reason 
approve, make the profligate sacrifice of public 
right on the altar of private interest. What 
more can be asked by the sternest tyrant of the 
most despicable slave? Creatures of this sort 
are the tools which usurpers employ in building 
despotism." 

Sounder and truer maxims never were ut- 
tered ; but unfortunately the indignation nat- 
urally excited by the utter weakness and folly 
of Jefferson's second terra, and the pitiable in- 
competence shown both by him, by his suc- 
cessor, and by their party associates in dealing 
with affairs, so inflamed and exasperated Morris 
as to make him completely lose his head, and 
hurried him into an opposition so violent that 
his follies surpassed the worst of the follies he 
condemned. He gradually lost faith in our re- 
publican system, and in the Union itself. His 
old jealousy of the West revived more strongly 
than ever ; he actually proposed that our enor- 
mous masses of new territory, destined one day 
to hold the bulk of our population, "should be 
governed as provinces, and allowed no voice in 
our councils." So hopelessly futile a scheme 
is beneath comment ; and it cannot possibly be 
reconciled with his previous utterances when 
he descanted on our future greatness as a people, 



346 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

and claimed the West as the heritage of our chil- 
dren. His conduct can only be unqualifiedly- 
condemned; and he has but the poor palliation • 
that, in our early history, many of the leading \ 
men in New York, and an even larger pro- ^ 
portion in New England, felt the same nar- ; 
row, illiberal jealousy of the West which had 
formerly been felt by the English statesmen for 
America as a whole. 

It is well indeed for our land that we of > 

this generation have at last learned to think * 

nationally, and, no matter in what state we live, 
to view our whole country with the pride of 
personal possession. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT AMONG 
THE FEDERALISTS. 

It is a painful thing to have to record that 
the closing act in a great statesman's career not 
only compares ill with what went before, but 
is actually to the last degree a discreditable and 
unworthy performance. 

Morris's bitterness and anger against the gov- 
ernment grew apace ; and finally his hatred 
for the administration became such, that, to 
hurt it, he was willing also to do irreparable 
harm to the nation itself. He violently op- 
posed the various embargo acts, and all the 
other governmental measures of the decade be- 
fore the war ; and worked himself up to such 
a pitch, when liostilities began, tliat, though one 
of the founders of the Constitution, though for- 
merly one of the chief exponents of the national 
idea, and though once a main upholder of the 
Union, he abandoned every patriotic principle 
and became an ardent advocate of Northern 
secession. 



348 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

To any reasoning student of American history 
it goes without saying that there was very good 
cause for his anger with the administration. 
Fi-oQi the time the House of Virginia came 
into power, until the beginning of Monroe's ad- 
ministration, there was a distinctly anti-New 
England feeling at Washington, and much of 
the legislation bore especially heavily on the 
Northeast. Excepting Jefferson, we have never 
produced an executive more helpless than Mad- 
ison, when it came to grappling with real dan- 
gers and difficulties. Like his 2)redecessor, he 
was only fit to be President in a time of pro- 
found peace ; he was utterly out of place the 
instant matters grew turbulent, or difficult prob- 
lems arose to be solved, and he was a ridicu- 
lously incompetent leader for a war with Great 
Britain. He was entirely too timid to have 
embarked on such a venture of his own accord, 
and was simply forced into it by the threat of 
losing his second term. The fiery young Dem- 
ocrats of the South and West, and their broth- 
ers of the INIiddle States, w'ere the authors of 
the war ; they themselves, for all their bluster, 
were but one shade less incompetent than 
their nominal chief, when it came to actual 
work, and were shamefully unable to make 
their words good by deeds. 

The administration thus drifted into a war 



THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 349 

which it had neither the wisdom to avoid, nor 
the forethought to prepare for. In view of the 
fact that the war was their own, it is impossi- 
ble to condemn sufficiently strongly the incred- 
ible folly of the Democrats in having all along 
refused to build a navy or provide any other 
adequate means of defense. In accordance with 
their curiously foolish theories, the^^ persisted 
in relying on that weakest of all weak reeds, 
the militia, who promptly ran away every time 
they faced a foe in the open. This applied 
to all, whether eastern, western, or southern ; 
the men of the northern states in 1812 and 
1813 did as badly as, and no worse than, the 
Virginians in 1814. Indeed, one of the good 
results of the war was that it did away forever 
with all reliance on the old-time militia, the 
most expensive and inefficient species of sol- 
diery that could be invented. During the first 
year the monotonous record of humiliations and 
defeats was only relieved by the splendid vic- 
tories of the navy which the Federalists had 
created twelve years previously, and which had 
been hurt rather than benefited in the inter- 
vening time. Gradually, however, the people 
themselves began to bring out leaders : two, 
Jackson and Scott, were really good generals, 
under whom our soldiers became able to face 
even the English regulars, then the most for- 



350 GOU VERNE UR MORRIS. 

midable fighting troops in the world ; and it 
must be remembered that Jackson won his 
fights absolutely unhelped by the administra- 
tion. In fact, the government at Washington 
does nT)t deserve one shred of credit for any of 
the victories we won, although to it we directly 
owe the greater number of our defeats. 

Granting, however, all that can be said as to 
the hopeless inefficiency of the administration, 
both in making ready for and in waging the 
war, it yet remains true that the war itself was 
eminently justifiable, and was of the greatest 
service to the nation. We had been bullied by 
England and France until we had to fight to 
preserve our national self-respect ; and we very 
properly singled out our chief aggressor, though 
it would perhaps have been better still to have 
acted on the proposition advanced in Congress, 
and to have declared war on both. Although 
nominally the peace left things as they had 
been, practically we gained 9ur point ; and we 
certainly came out of the contest with a greatly 
increased reputation abroad. In spite of the 
ludicrous series of failures which began with 
our first attempt to invade Canada, and culmi- 
nated at Bladensburg, yet in a succession of con- 
tests on the ocean and the lakes, we shattered 
the charmed shield of British naval invincibility ; 
while on the northern frontier we developed 



THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 351 

under Scott and Brown an infantry wliich, un- 
like any of the armies of continental Europe, 
was able to meet on equal terms the British in- 
fantry in pitched battle in the open ; and at 
New Orleans we did what the best of Napo- 
leon's marshals, backed by the flower of the 
French soldiers, had been unable to accomplish 
during five years of warfare in Spain, and in- 
flicted a defeat such as no English army had 
suffered during a quarter of a century of un- 
broken warfare. Above all, the contest gave 
an immense impetus to our national feeling, 
and freed our politics forever from any depen- 
dence on those of a foreign power. 

The war was distinctly worth fighting, and 
resulted in good to the country. The blame 
that attaches to Madison and the elder demo- 
cratic-republican leaders, as well as to their 
younger associates. Clay, Calhoun, and the rest, 
who fairly flogged them into action, relates to 
their utter failure to make any preparations for 
the contest, to their helpless inability to carry 
it on, and to the extraordinary weakness and 
indecision of their policy throughout ; and on 
all these points it is hardly possible to visit 
them with too unsparing censure. 

Yet, grave though these faults were, they 
were mild compared to those committed by 
Morris and the other ultra-Federalists of New 



852 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

York and New England. Morris's opposition 
to the war led him to the most extravagant 
lengths. In his hatred of the opposite party 
he lost all loyalty to the nation. He cham- 
pioned the British view of their right to impress 
seamen from our ships ; he approved of peace 
on the terms they offered, which included a cur- 
tailment of our western frontier, and the erec- 
tion along it of independent Indian sovereign- 
ties under British protection. He found space 
in his letters to exult over the defeats of Bona- 
parte, but could spare no word of praise for our 
own victories. 

He actually advocated repudiating our war 
debt,^ on the ground that it was void, being 
founded on a moral wrong ; and he wished the 
Federalists to make public profession of their 
purpose, so that when they should come back 
to power, the holders might have no reason to 
complain that there had been no warning of 
their intention. To Josiah Quincy, on May 
15th, he wrote : " Should it be objected, as 
it probably will to favor lenders and their 
associates, that public faith is pledged, it may 
be replied that a pledge wickedly given is not 
to be redeemed." He thus advanced the theory 
that in a government ruled by parties, which 

1 As, for instance, in a letter to David R. Ogden, April 5, 
1813. 



THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 353 

come into power alternately, any debt could be 
repudiated, at any time, if the party in power 
happened to disapprove of its originally being 
incurred. No greenback demagogue of the 
lowest type ever advocated a proposition more 
dishonest or more contemptible. 

He wrote that he agreed wdth Pickering that 
it was impious to raise taxes for so unjust a 
war. He endeavored, fortunately in vain, to 
induce Rufus King in the Senate to advocate 
the refusal of supplies of every sort, whether of 
men or money, for carrying on the war ; but 
King was far too honorable to turn traitor. 
Singularly forgetful of his speeches in the 
Senate ten years before, he declared that he 
wished that a foreign power might occupy and 
people the West, so as, by outside pressure, 
to stifle our feuds. He sneered at the words 
union and constitution, as being meaningless. 
He railed bitterly at the honest and loyal ma- 
jority of his fellow-Fedoralists in New York, 
who had professed their devotion to the Union ; 
and in a letter of April 29th, to Harrison 
Gray Otis, — who was almost as bad as him- 
self, — he strongly advocated secession, writing 
among other things that he wished the New 
York Federalists to declare publicly that " the 
Union, being the means of freedom, should be 
prized as such, but that the end should not be 



354 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

sacrificed to the means." By comparing this 
with Calhoun's famous toast at the Jefferson 
birthday dinner in 1830, " The Union ; next to 
our liberty the most dear ; may we all remem- 
ber that it can only be preserved by respecting 
the rights of the states and distributing equally 
the benefit and the burden of the Union," it 
can be seen how completely Morris's utterances 
went on all fours witli those of the great nul- 
lifier. 

To Pickering lie wrote, on October 17th, 1814 : 
" I bear every day professions of attachment to 
the Union, and declarations as to its importance. 
I should be glad to meet with some one who 
could tell me what has become of the Union, in 
what it consists, and to what useful purpose it 
endures." He regarded the dissolution of the 
Union to be so nearly an accomplished fact that 
the only question was whether the boundary 
should be " the Delaware, the Susquehanna, or 
the Potomac " ; for he thought that New York 
would have to go with New England. He nour- 
ished great hopes of the Hartford convention, 
which he expected would formally come out for 
secession; he wrote Otis that the convention 
should declare that the Union was already 
broken, and that all that remained to do was 
to take action for the preservation of the inter- 
ests of the Northeast. He was much chagrined 



THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 355 

when the convention fell under the control of 
Cabot and the moderates. As late as January 
10, 1815, he wrote that the only proceeding 
from which the people of his section would gain 
practical benefit would be a " severance of the 
Union." 

In fact, throughout the war of 1812 he ap- 
peared as the open champion of treason to the 
nation, of dishonesty to the nation's creditors, 
and of cringing subserviency to a foreign power. 
It is as impossible to reconcile his course with 
his previous career and teachings as it is to try 
to make it square with the rules of statesman- 
ship and morality. His own conduct affords a 
conclusive condemnation of his theories as to 
the great inferiority of a government conducted 
by the multitude, to a government conducted 
by the few who should have riches and educa- 
tion. Undoubtedly he was one of these few ; 
he was an exceptionally able man, and a 
wealthy one; but he went farther wrong at 
this period than the majority of our people — 
the "mob" as he would have contemptuously 
called them — have ever gone at any time; for 
though every state in turn, and almost every 
statesman, has been wrong upon some issue or 
another, yet in 'the long run the bulk of the 
people have always hitherto shown themselves 
true to the cause of right. JMorris strenuously 



356 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

insisted upon the need of property being de- 
fended from the masses ; yet he advocated re- 
pudiation of the national debt, which he should 
have known to be quite as dishonest as the re- 
pudiation of his individual liabilities, and he 
was certainly aware that the step is a short one 
between refusing to pay a man what ought to 
be his and taking away from him what actually 
is his. 

There were many other Federalist leaders 
in the same position as himself, especially in 
the three southern New England states, where 
the whole Federalist party laid itself open to 
the gravest charges of disloyalty. Morris was 
not alone in his creed at this time. On the 
contrary, his position is interesting because it is 
typical of that assumed by a large section of his 
party throughout the Northeast. In fact, the 
Federalists in this portion of the Union had 
split in three, although the lines of cleavage 
were not always well marked. Many of them 
remained heartily loyal to the national idea ; 
the bulk hesitated as to whether they should go 
all lengths or not ; while a large and influential 
minority, headed by Morris, Pickering, Quincy, 
Lowell and others, were avowed disunionists. 
Had peace not come when it did, it is probable 
that the moderates would finally have fallen 
under the control of these ultras. The party 



THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 357 

developed an element of bitter unreason in de- 
feat ; it was a really sad sight to see a body of 
able, educated men, interested and skilled in 
tlie conduct of public affairs, all going angrily 
and stupidly wrong on the one question that 
was of vital concein to the nation. 

It is idle to try to justify the proceedings of 
the Hartford convention, or of the Massachu- 
setts and Connecticut legislatures. The deci- 
sion to keep the New England troop3 as an 
independent command was of itself sufficient 
ground for condemnation ; moreover, it was not 
warranted by any show of superior prowess on 
the part of the New Englanders, for a portion of 
Maine continued in possession of the British till 
the close of the war. The Hartford resolutions 
were so framed as to justify seceding or not se- 
ceding as events turned out ; a man like Morris 
could extract comfort from them, while it was 
hoped they would not frighten those who were 
more loyal. The majority of the people in New 
England were beyond question loyal, exactly as 
in 1860 a majority of Southerners were opposed 
to secession ; but the disloyal element was active 
and resolute, and hoped to force the remainder 
into its own way of thinking. It failed sig- 
nally, and was burled beneath a load of dis- 
grace ; and New England was taught thus early 
and by heart the lesson that wrongs must be 



358 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

righted within, and not without the Union. It 
would have been well for her sister section of 
the South, so loyal in 1815, if forty-five years 
afterwards she had spared herself the neces- 
sity of learning the same lesson at an infinitely 
greater cost. 

The truth is that it is nonsense to reproach 
any one section with being especially disloyal 
to the Union. At one time or another almost 
every state has shown strong particularistic 
leanings ; Connecticut and Pennsylvania, for 
example, quite as much as Virginia or Ken- 
tucky. Fortunately the outbursts were never 
simultaneous in a majority. It is as impossible 
to question the fact that at one period or an- 
other of the past, many of the states in each 
section have been very shaky in their allegiance 
as it is to doubt that they are now all heartily 
loyal. The secession movement of 1860 was 
pushed to extremities, instead of being merely 
planned and threatened, and the revolt was pe- 
culiarly abhorrent, because of the intention to 
make slavery the " corner-stone " of the new 
nation, and to reintroduce the slave-trade, to the 
certain ultimate ruin of the Southern whites ; 
but at least it was entirely free from the 
meanness of being made in the midst of a 
doubtful struggle with a foreign foe. Indeed, 
in this respect the ultra-Federalists of New 



THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 359 

York and New England in 1814 should be com- 
pared with the infamous Northern copperheads 
of the Vallandigham stripe rather than with 
the gallant confederates who risked and lost 
all in fighting for the cause of their choice. 
Half a century before the " stars and bars '* 
waved over Lee's last intrenchments, perfervid 
New England patriots were fond of flaunting 
" the flag with five stripes," and drinking to the 
health of the — fortunately stillborn — new na- 
tion. Later on, the disunion movement among 
.the Northern abolitionists, headed by Garrison, 
was perhaps the most absolutely senseless of all, 
for its success meant the immediate abandon- 
ment of every hope of abolition. 

In each one of these movements men of 
the highest character and capacity took part. 
Morris had by previous services rendered the 
whole nation his debtor; Garrison was one of 
the little band who, in the midst of general 
apathy, selfishness, and cowardice, dared to de- 
mand the cutting out of the hideous plague 
spot of our civilization ; while Lee and Jackson 
were as remarkable for stainless purity and 
high-mindedness as they were for their consum- 
mate military skill. But the disunion move- 
ments in which they severally took part were 
wholly wrong. An Englishman of to-day may 
be equally proud of the valor of Cavalier and 



360 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

Roundhead ; but, if competent to judge, he 
must admit that the Roundhead was right. So 
it is with us. The man who fought for secession 
warred for a cause as evil and as capable of 
working lasting harm as the doctrine of the 
divine right of kings itself. But we may feel 
an intense pride in his gallantry ; and we may 
believe in his honesty as heartily as we believe 
in that of the only less foolish being who wishes 
to see our government strongly centralized, 
heedless of the self-evident fact that over such 
a vast land as ours the nation can exist only 
as a Federal Union ; and that, exactly as the 
liberty of the individual and the rights of the 
states can only be preserved by upholding the 
strength of the nation, so this same localizing 
of power in all matters not essentially national 
is vital to the wellbeing and durability of the 
government. 

Besides the honorable men drawn into such 
movements there have always been plenty who 
took part in or directed them for their own self- 
ish ends, or whose minds Avere so warped and 
their sense of political morality so crooked as to 
make them originate schemes that would have 
reduced us to the impotent level of the Spanish- 
American republics. These men were peculiar 
to neither section. In 1803, Aaron Burr of 
New York was undoubtedly anxious to bring 



THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 361 

about ill the NortheastSvhat sixt}^ years later 
Jefferson Davis of Mississippi so nearly suc- 
ceeded in doing in the South ; and the attempt 
in the South to make a hero of the one is as 
foolish as it would be to make a hero of the 
other in the North. If there are such virtues 
as loyalty and patriotism, then there must exist 
the corresponding crime of treason ; if there is 
any merit in practicing the first, then there must 
be equal demerit in committing the last. Emas- 
culated sentimentalists may try to strike from 
the national dictionary the word treason ; but 
until that is done, Jefferson Davis must be 
deemed guilty thereof. 

There are, however, very few of our states- 
men whose characters can be painted in simple, 
uniform colors, like Washington and Lincoln 
on the one hand, or Burr and Davis on the 
other. Nor is Morris one of these few. His 
place is alongside of men like Madison, Samuel 
Adams, and Patrick Henry, who did the nation 
great service at times, but each of whom, at 
some one or two critical junctures, ranged him- 
self with the forces of disorder. 

After the peace Morris accommodated himself 
to the altered condition with his usual buoyant 
cheerfulness ; he was too light-hearted, and, to 
say the truth, had too good an opinion of him- 
self, to be cast down even by the signal failure 

1 People sometimes forget that Burr was as willing to try 
sedition in the East as in the West. 



362 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

of liis expectations and the memory of the by 
no means creditable part he had played. Be- 
sides, he had the great virtue of always good- 
humoredly yielding to the inevitable. He 
heartily wished the country well, and kept up 
a constant correspondence with men high in 
influence at Washington. He disliked the 
tariff bill of 1816; he did not believe in duties 
or imposts, favoring internal, although not di- 
rect, taxation. He was sharp-sighted enough 
to see that the Federal party had shot its bolt 
and outlived its usefulness, and that it was time 
for it to dissolve. To a number of Federalists 
at Philadelphia, who wished to continue the 
organization, he wrote strongly advising them 
to give up the idea, and adding some very sound 
and patriotic counsel. " Let us forget party 
and think of our country. That country em- 
braces both parties. We must endeavor, there- 
fore, to save and benefit both. This cannot be 
effected while political delusions array good 
men against each other. If you abandon the 
contest, the voice of reason, now drowned in 
factious vociferation, will be listened to and 
heard. The pressure of distress will accelerate 
the moment of reflection ; and when it arrives 
the people will look out for men of sense, ex- 
perience, and integrity. Such men may, I trust, 
be found in both parties ; and if our country be 



THE NORTHERN DISUNION MOVEMENT. 363 

delivered, what does it signify whether those 
who operate her salvation wear a federal or 
democratic cloak ? " These words formed al- 
most his last public utterance, for they were 
penned but a couple of months before his death ; 
and he might well be content to let them 
stand as a fit closing to his public career. 

He died November 6, 1816, when sixty-four 
years old, after a short illness. He had suf- 
fered at intervals for a long time from gout ; 
but he had enjoyed general good health, as his 
erect, commanding, well-built figure showed; 
for he was a tall and handsome man. He was 
buried on his own estate at Morrisania. 

There has never been an American statesman 
of keener intellect or more brilliant genius. 
Had he possessed but a little more steadiness 
and self-control he would have stood among the 
two or three very foremost. He was gallant 
and fearless. He was absolutely upright and 
truthful ; the least suggestion of falsehood was 
abhorrent to him. His extreme, aggressive 
frankness, joined to a certain imperiousness of 
disposition, made it difficult for him to get 
along well with many of the men with whom 
he was thrown in contact. In politics he was 
too much of a free lance ever to stand very 
high as a leader. He was very generous and 
hospitable; he was witty and humorous, a 



364 GOUVERNEUR MORRIS. 

charming companion, and extremely fond of 
good living. He had a proud, almost hasty 
temper, and was quick to resent an insult. He 
was strictly just ; and he made open war on all 
traits that displeased him, especially meanness 
and hypocrisy. He was essentially a strong 
man, and he was an American through and 
through. 

Perhaps his greatest interest for us lies in the 
fact that he was a shrewder, more far-seeing 
observer and recorder of contemporary men and 
events, both at home and abroad, than any 
other American or foreign statesman of his 
time. But aside from this he did much lasting 
work. He took a most prominent part in bring- 
ing about the independence of the colonies, and 
afterwards in welding them into a single power- 
ful nation, whose greatness he both foresaw and 
foretold. He made the final draft of the United 
States Constitution ; he first outlined our pres- 
ent system of national coinage ; he originated 
and got under way the plan for the Erie Canal ; 
as minister to France he successfully performed 
the most difficult task ever allotted to an Amer- 
ican representative at a foreign capital. With 
all his faults, there are few men of his gener- 
ation to whom the country owes more than to 
Gouverneur Morris. 



INDEX. 



Adams, John, 52; appointed com- 
missioner, 119 ; repudiates com- 
mand of Congress, 120 ; share in 
most important treaty, 124 ; ab- 
sent from National Convention, 
133 ; nominated for the Presiden- 
cy, 328 ; signs judiciary biU, 331 ; 
appoints new judges, 332. 

Adams, Samuel, T7, 79, 128. 

Allen, Ethan, 46. 

America, successful, 117, 118, 131, 
132, 144. 

American army, suffering of, 76, 77 ; 
commissioners, 119, 120, 121, 123, 
124 ; Constitutional Convention, 
delegates in, 133 ; contrasted with 
States General of France, 134, 
135, 136 ; independence, 122, 123 ; 
leaders compared with European, 
82, 83 ; navy, 196, 291 ; triumph, 
123, 124. • 

Americans, in Revolutionary "War, 
5 ; of 1776, compared with those of 
Civil War, 49, 50. 

Ames, Fisher, 327. 

Assembly, 33, 36, 37, 44. 

Bank of North America, 103. 

Bastile, the, 211, 225, 226. 

Battle of Bennington, 69 ; Brandy- 
wine, 75 ; Princeton, 48 ; Trenton, 
48, 49; Guilford Court House, 
113. 

Battles on soil of New York, 3, 4. 

British allies, 49, 50, 68, 119 ; war- 
ships, 43, 47. 

Brunswick, Duke of, 284, 285. 

Burgoyne, 49, 68, 72, 74, 78 ; breach 
of faith with, 125. 

Burke, Edmund, 39. 

Burr, Aaron, 329, 330, 360 ; and Jef- 
ferson Davis, 361. 

Butler, 147, 157. 



Calhoim, famous toast of, 354. 

Canada, 45, 89, 90. 

Carolinas, the, 8, 11, 30, 45, 50. 

Carroll, 40. 

Church of Rome, 65. 

Churches, 9, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19. 

Civil War, people m the, 49, 50. 

Clermont-Tonnerre, Count de, 179, 
203. 

Clmton, George, 10 ; chosen gov- 
ernor, 68, 327 ; as a politician, 
97, 128. 

Clintons, the, 10, 20, 68. 

Colonial contests, 3 ; legislature, 
20, 21, 33. 

Colonies, 11. 

Confederation, condition of, after 
the war, 126. 

Congress. See Continental ; see 
Provincial. 

Connecticut, 45, 46. 

Constitution, its character, 136, 141, 
142 ; opposition to its adoption, 
165, 167. 

Continental Congress, the, 36; dis- 
honorable acts, 73, 78, 79, 80 ; its 
condition at end of 1779, 99 ; es- 
tablishes four departments, 103 ; 
instructions to commissioners, 
119, 120. 

Convention, New York, 59, 65 ; na- 
tional, 133-139. 

Cornwallis, 114, 116. 

Council of appointment, 64, 155 ; of 
revisions, 64, 155 ; of safety, 67, 
68, 71. 

Cruger, 14, 45. 

Currency, condition of, 105 ; table 
proposed, 107. 

Dalrymple, General, 125. 
Danton, 270, 287, 296. 
Davis, Jefferson, 361. 



366 



INDEX. 



D'Artois, Count (Charles X.), 217, 
30G. 

Deane, Silas, 93. 

Decimal system, 104, 107. 

Declaration, of Independence, 47, 
53 ; of Rights, 178. 

De Lancys, IG, 21, 45. 

D'Estaing, Count, 2G4. 

De Flahaut, Madame, 204-207. 

Democrac}', 145. 

Democrats, 137, 138. 

Departments, 103. 

De Stael, 203 ; Madame, 179, 199 ; 
vanity of, 200, 201 ; want of deli- 
cacy, 202, 203 ; her estimate of 
the Abbe Sieyes, 247 ; grief for 
Lafayette, 317. 

Disunion movements, 358, 359, 3G0. 

Dollar, the Spanish, lOG, 107. 

Dumouriez, 2G9-272. 

Dutch, descendants of, 9 ; language, 
13 ; republicans, 17 ; battle with 
EngUsh, 115 ; in war with Spain, 
132. 

Ellsworth, Oliver, 160. 
England, treatment of her Ameri- 
can subjects, 4, 5 ; grounds of 
complaint, 5 ; courage, IIG; inso- 
lence, 323. 
English, stock, people of, 5, 126 ; 
language, 12, 13 ; historians, 117 ; 
hostile feeling, 228, 229 ; society, 
230, 231 ; chmate, 342. 
Episcopalians, 13, 16, 18, 21, 60. \ 

Esterhazy, 311, 312. i 

Extremists, 20. \ 

Federalism, 138, 322, 323. | 

Federalist party, leaders of, 92, 137, | 
138. 

Federalists, 141, 156, 321, 323, 331, 
334, 335. 

Foreign or non-English elements, 
11, 12, 13, 34. 

Foreigner?, movement against, 157. 

Fox, 123, 233, 23G. 

France, treaty with, 88 ; would have 
Americans dependent allies, 121, 
122, 123 ; contrasted with Amer- 
ica, 184 ; destitute of statesmen, 
241. 

Franklin appointed commissioner, 
119, 120, 124 ; delegate to National 
Convention, 133 ; advocate of weak 
central government, 137. 

French, motives, 89, 90 ; struggles 
with England, 115 ; navy, 116 ; 
admirals, 117 ; government, 121 ; 
character, 186-189 ; noblesse and 



common people, 212 ; Revolution, 
170-175, 244, 258-2G3. 

Gates, 71,72, 73, 74. 

Generals, of Revolution, 52, 116 ; in 
Civil War, 52. 

Genet, 292. 

George III., 8, 228, 231. 

Georgia, 8, 11, 50, 160. 

Gerard, 89, 90, 122. 

German auxiliaries, 119. 

Germany, 144, 145, 1G5. 

Gibraltar, 115,116,122. 

Government, 130, 131, 144, 145. 

Governor, name obnoxious, 62, 63. 

Gower, Lord, 276. 

Great Britain and American sub- 
jects, 4, 6 ; odds against, 115 ; hos- 
tility to American trade, 128. 

Greene, 45, 52, 86, 113, 115, 116, 117. 

Hamilton, Alexander, 10, 52, 92, 
102, 104, 111 ; delegate to National 
Convention, 133 ; advocate of 
strong government, 137, 138 ; in 
favor of domestic manufactures, 
156 ; proposes basis of representa- 
tion, 158 ; assisted in writing the 
" Federalist," 16G ; procures rati- 
fication of the Constitution, 167 ; 
passing coolness with Morris, 
320 ; his haughtiness, 326 ; defeat 
" by Democrats, 329. 

Hancock, John, 79. 

Hartford Convention, 357. 

Henry, Patrick, 128, 324. 

Herkomer, 10. • 

Holland, 116. 

Huguenots, 9, 10, 65. 

Impressment of American sailors, 

233, 234. 
Independence, 55, 56, 88. 
India, 115, IIG. 
Indian warfare, 3, 4, 8, 74. 
Infidels, 289. 
Irish, in New England, 12 ; of 1776, 

21 ; in Revolutionary armies, 34 ; 

in Civil War, 35, 

Jackson, General, 349, 350. 

Jay, John, admitted to the bar, 23 ; 
in Continental Congress, 41, 42 ; 
resolution indorsing Declaration 
of Independence, 58; plan lor 
state constitution, 62, 63 ; article 
on toleration, 65 ; would abolish 
slaverj', C6, 67 ; on committee to 
organize state government, 67 ; 
defends Schuyler's cause, 72 ; re- 



INDEX. 



367 



inforcements for Gates, 73 ; chief 
justice, 75 ; wishes well to Old 
England, 92 ; of Puritanic moral- 
ity, 110 ; friendship with Morris, 
111 ; minister to Spain, 111 ; views 
on education of children, 111 ; af- 
fection for America, 112 ; com- 
missioner, 119; repudiates com- 
mand of Congress, 120; true 
policy summed up, 123 ; his the 
chief part in treaty, 124 ; secre- 
tary for foreign atf airs, 133 ; helps 
Hamilton on the " Federalist," 
16G ; a strong Federalist, 301, 326 ; 
appointed to negotiate treaty in I 
England, 301, 302, 327 ; governor, | 
327, 328, 329 ; visits to and from I 
Morris, 310, 341. 

Jefferson, 52, 104, 107, 108, 129, 131, 
133 ; important truth taught by 
him, 138 ; American minister to 
France, 176, 177 ; treatment of 
Morris, 292 ; incompetence when 
President, 334, 335, 318. 

Johnsons, the, 17, 38, 45. 

Judiciary bill, 331-334. 

King, Rufus, 252, 353. 
King's College, 3, 18. 

Lafayette, 85, 86, 117, 176, 177, 178, 
180, 181, 184, 187 ; his character, 
221, 222, 273 ; ideas impracticable, 
240, 241 ; proclaimed and impris- 
oned, 273, 274 ; released, 317. 

Lafayette, Madame de, 181, 274, 
275. 

Lake Champlain, 4, 68. 

Lake George, 3. 

Leaders, 52 ; loyalist, 16, 45 ; revo- 
lutionary, 16, 49. 

Lecky, 117, 118. 

Leeds, Duke of, 231, 233, 237. 

Lincoln, 52, 133, 138. 

Lineage, 10, 34. 

Livingston, Robert, 10, 59 ; on com- 
mittee to organize state govern- 
ment, 67 ; chancellor, 75 ; secre- 
tary of foreign affairs, 103. 

Livingstons, the, 21, 326. 

Louis XVI., 216, 250, 254, 255, 256, 
286. 

Louis XVIL, 307. 

Louis PhiHppe, 317, 318. 

Louisiana, 336, 337, 339. 

Loyalists, 16, 29, 45, 119, 167. 

Luzerne, 236. 

Madison, 129 ; delegate to National 
Convention, 133 ; during forma- 



tion of Constitution, 139, 140, 145, 
150, 153, 162 ; compliment to Mor- 
ris, 165 ; assists Hamilton in wri- 
ting the "Federalist," 166; as 
President, 348. 

Manorial families, 14, 15, 19. 

Marie Antoinette, 225, 288. 

Marmontel, 247. 

Marshall, 325. 

Mason, George, 160. 

Merchants, 15, 19, 21. 

Militia, 69, 70, 72, 113, 114. 

Mirabeau, 130, 174, 200, 222, 223. 

Mississippi, 90, 91, 95, 112, 113, 148. 

Money, 24, 37, 128. 

Monroe, 293 ; recalled and rebuked, 
300 ; a foolish minister, 301, 302. 

Montmorin, Count de, 218, 249. 

Moreau, General, 341, 342. 

Morris, Gouverneur, birth, 1 ; de- 
scent, 2; boyhood, 3 ; college ca- 
reer, 20, 22 ; takes part in public 
affairs, 23, 24 ; desire for foreign 
travel, 25 ; narrow means, 26 ; in 
societj% 27 ; little faith in extreme 
democracy, 30, 31 ; dislike for 
mobs, 31, 32 ; plans for reunion 
with Great Britain, 32, 33 ; dele- 
gate to Provincial Congress, 35, 
36; report and speech, 37, 38; 
objects to eighth article of report, 
41 ; at head of patriotic party, 4p, 
47, 53; able speech in favor of 
new governments, 53-58 ; mem- 
ber of committees, 59 ; position in 
regard to the Tories, 60, 61 ; for- 
mation of State Constitution, 62- 
67 ; at Schuyler's lieadquarters, 
68-71 ; efforts in behalf of Schuy- 
ler, 72 ; secures reinforcements for 
Gates, 73 ; letters to Schuyler, 74, 
75 ; elected to Continental Con- 
gress, 76 ; visits Vallej' Forge, 77 ; 
a good financier, 78, 80, 86 ; en- 
deavors to secure approval of 
Washington's plans, 78, 79, S3, 85 ; 
letter to Washington, 84 ; friend- 
ship with Greene, 86 ; report on 
Lord North's conciliatory bills, 

88 ; prepares " Observations on 
the American Revolution," 88; 
drafts instructions to Franklin, 

89 ; reply to French minister, 91 ; 
" Observations on the Finances of 
America," 91 ; his loyalist rela- 
tives, 92, 93 ; controversy with 
Thomas Paine, 93, 94 ; drafts in- 
structions to our foreign minis- 
ters, 94, 95 ; dispute of New York 
with Vermont, 96, 97 ; fails of re- 



868 



INDEX. 



election, 98 ; life in Philadelphia, 
99 ; publishes essays on the finan- 
ces, 100, 101, 102 ; assistant finan- 
cier, 103 ; founder of national 
coinage, 104, 105, 100, 107 ; enjoy- 
ment in society, 108, 110 ; serious 
injury, 109 ; want of insight into 
the future, 112, 113; foresees final 
success of Greene, 113 ; letters to 
Jay, 118, 120, 127; advocates a 
firmer Union, 129, 130 ; in Con- 
stitutional Convention, 133, 139, 
140; has no regard for States- 
rights, 142-145 ; jealousy of the 
West, 146, 147 ; views on the 
suffrage, 149-153 ; on the power 
of the President, 153, 154 ; on the 
judiciary, 155 ; on Congress, 15G ; 
speeches on the slavery question, 
158, 159 ; a warm advocate of 
the Constitution, 1G6 ; return to 
New York, 167 ; acts in behalf of 
loyalists, 167; residence in France, 
169 ; letters and diary, 170, 175, 
170, 183; hostile to spirit of 
French Revolution, 170-175 ; at 
home in Parisian society, 176 ; 
opinion of Jefferson, 177 ; of La- 
fayette, 178, 181 ; views on French 
politics, 183-186 ; distrust of 
French character, 185, 186, 188, 
189 ; National Assembly, 190, 191 ; 
a true republican and American, 
193, 194 ; minor services to Wash- 
ington, 195 ; correspondence with 
Paul Jones, 196 ; life in Paris, 197, 
198, 199 ; opinion of Madame de 
Stael, 199-204; intimacy with 
Madame de Flahaut, 204-207 ; ac- 
quaintance with the Duchess of 
Orleans, 207-211, 245, 240 ; liter- 
ary life of the salSn, 213-215; 
judgment of his contemporaries, 
216, 219-223; of French people, 
224 ; advice to a certain painter, 
226 ; mission to British govern- 
ment, 227, 228 ; English not con- 
genial, 229, 230; impatience at 
delay, 233; interview with Pitt, 
234 ; is blamed for failure of ne- 
gotiations, 230 ; trip through 
Netherlands and up the Rhine, 
237 ; speculations of various kinds, 
238, 239 ; advice to Lafayette, 
240-243, 260 ; letter to Washing- 
ton, 243-245 ; fondness for the 
theatre, 247 ; dislike to priest- 
hood, 248, 249 ; interest in home 
affairs, 250; made minister to 
France, 252 ; is advised by Wash- | 



ington, 252, 253 ; plans for escape 
of the king and queen, 254, 255, 
256 ; his, a brilliant chapter in 
American diplomacy, 257, 258 ; 
horror of the mob, 200, 261 ; his 
house a place of refuge, 203, 264 ; 
picture of the French, 265-268; 
generosity to Lafayette family, 
274, 275 ; remains in Paris, 276, 
277 ; spirited conduct when har- 
assed, 278, 279 ; payment of Amer- 
ican debt, 280, 281 ; irritates the 
executive council, 281, 282; French 
privateers, 283 ; commentary on 
passing events, 283-291 ; is re- 
called, 292, 293 ; as foreign min- 
ister to be honored, 264, 294; 
accurate forecast of events, 295 ; 
clear views of French Revolution, 
298 ; journeys in Europe, 302 ; no 
longer an impartial judge, 303 ; 
estimate of Napoleon, 303, 304; 
in Switzerland, 304 ; in Great 
Britain, 305 ; opinion of royalist 
refugees, 306, 307 ; in Berlin, 308, 
315 ; in Vienna, 310-315 ; dealings 
with Louis Philippe, 317, 318; 
return to New York, 320 ; elected 
to Senate, 328 ; disapproves of 
Burr, 330 ; opinion of Jefferson, 
331 ; speech in favor of occupying 
Louisiana, 337, 338; fails of re- 
election, 339 ; leader in project of 
Erie canal, 339, 340 ; life at Mor- 
risania, 340 ; marriage, 340 ; form- 
ality, 341 ; compares America and 
England, 342 ; loses his satisfac- 
tion with the people and the gov- 
ernment, and becomes soured, 345; 
advocates northern secession, 347 ; 
loses his loyalty to the nation, 
352-359 ; closing acts of his career 
unwortliy of him, 352-355 ; after 
the peace, 361 ; gives sound and 
patriotic counsel, 362, 363 ; death, 
363 ; character and services, 363, 
364. 

Morris, Robert, 102, 103, 133. 

Morris, Staats Long, 15, 61, 167. 

Morrisania, 1, 167, 340. 

Morrises, the, 2. 

Narbonne, Chevalier de, 202, 203. 

National Union, 126, 140. 

Nationalists, 141. 

Necker, 199, 200, 218, 219, 220. 

New England, 11, 161, 324; Puri- 
tans, 5 ; militia, 69 ; members of 
Continental Congress, 71, 79, 80. 

New Rochelle, 3. 



INDEX. 



369 



New York city, 1 ; society in, 2G ; 
exposed positions, 43 ; entered by 
Continental forces, 40 ; left by 
peaceable citizens, 48 ; held by 
British, 116. 

New York colony, 1,3; battles in, 
3, 4 ; claim of liberty as a right, 
6 ; loyalty, 7, 8 ; many nationali- 
ties, 9, 10 ; churches, 9 ; etlmic 
type, 11 ; rivalries, 14 ; govern- 
ment, 14 ; three parties, 19 ; in 
debt, 23 ; not in full sympathy 
with the patriots, 35, 36 ; soldiers 
in royal armies, 44 ; famous Tory 
leaders, 45 ; second Provincial 
Congress, 46 ; third Provincial 
Congress, 47 ; Declaration of In- 
dependence ratified, and State 
Constitution organized, 47 ; adop- 
tion of the national Constitution, 
165, 167. 

New York State, 48 ; party contests, 
326. 

New Yorkers, 13, 33, 96. 

North Carolina, 165. 

North, Lord, conciliatory bills of, 
87. 

Officers, in trade, 81 ; foreign, 85 ; 

French, in American Revolution, 

264. 
Oriskany, fight at, 10, 12, 72. 
Orleans, Duchess of, 207, 208, 209, 

245, 246. 
Orleans, Duke of (Egalit^), 207, 216, 

275, 288. 
Otis, Harrison Gray, 353. 

Paine, Thomas, 93, 208, 289. 

Paris, 266, 267 ; factious in, 269 ; 

changed, 270. 
Paul Jones, 196. 
Pennsylvania, 28, 157, 166, 324. 
Philadelphia, 110. 
Pinckney, 145, 326, 328, 329. 
Pitt, 233, 234, 237. 
Presbyterians, 14, 18, 21. 
Prisoners, exchange of, 125. 
Provincial Congress, 34, 35, 38, 39, 

43, 46, 47, 53, 58. 
Proviso regarding toleration, 66. 
Prussia, 308, 309. 

Quebec, 10 ; bUl, 41. 
Queen's County, 44, 46. 

Randolph, 292. 

Representation of slave states, 157, 

158, 164. 
Republican party, 141. 



Republicanism, extreme, 20. 

Revolution, enemies in, 49, 68 ; two 
sides of, 30 ; officers of, 79 ; men 
of, 81 , 82 ; influence of, compared 
with tliat of French, 298, 299. 

Revolutionary armies compared 
with those in Civil War, 50, 51, 81. 

Rhode Island, 126, 165, 189. 

Riedesel, " America," 308 ; General, 
316. 

Rodney, 116, 117. 
i Rohan, Cardinal de, 249. 
I Roman Catholics, 9, 39, 64, 65. 
I Royalist party, 19, 20. 

Rumford, Count, 316. 

Russia, 168. 

Schuyler, Philip, 10, 68, 69, 71 ; re- 
placed by Gates, 71, 72, 73; his 
noble behavior, 74. 

Scott, General, 349. 
j Sherman, Roger, 71. 
1 Sieyes, the Abbe, 136, 246. 

Six Nations, 3. 

Slavery, question of, 66, 67, 157-165. 

Sons of Liberty, 31, 43. 

South Carolina, 80, 145, 160, 325. 

Southern States, 115, 147, 148, 158, 
161, 162, 163. 

Spain, 90, 91, 112, 115, 120, 121, 122, 
123, 148. 

Spanish-Americans, 131, 132. 

St. Clair, General, 69. 

St. Patrick's Day, 21. 

Stamp Act, 4. 

Stark, 69. 

States General, 134, 184, 224. 

Statesmen, 51, 52, 134. 

Suffrage not an inborn or natural 
right, 149, 150, 157. 

Taine, 183. 

Talleyrand, 204, 221, 247, 277. 
Tarleton, Colonel, 247. 
Tesse, Comtesse de, 181, 182. 
Toleration, 39, 64, 65, 66. 
Tories, 35, 44, 50, 60, 61, 68, 92, 167. 
Tory leaders, 45. 

Treaty, 124 ; obligations of, unful- 
filled, 227, 228 ; Jay's. 327. 
Trio, great American, 133. 
Tryon, royal governor, 44. 

Valley Forge, 49, 76. 
Vergennes, 121, 237. 
Vermont, 70, 96, 98. 
Virginia, 114, 160, 161, 165; her 
statesmen and warriors, 325. 

War of 1812, 148, 349, 350. 



370 



INDEX. 



Warriors, 51, 52, 325. 

Washiugton, 33, 44, 47, 48; states- 
man, soldier, patriot, 52 ; difficul- 
ties, TS, 79 ; coniidence in Morris, 
83 ; dislike to foreign officers, 85 ; 
letter to Jay, 118 ; delegate in 
National Convention, 133 ; letter 
to Morris, 189, 190; views with 
regard to French Revolution, 191, 
192, 252, 292, 293; a watch for, 
195 ; statue by Hudon, 19G ; kind 



advice, 252, 253 ; recalls Monroe, 
300 ; reply to letter of Morris, 
306 ; distrust of Jefferson, and 
Madison, 321. 

West, tlie, 14G, 147, 148. 

Whig families, 20, 21. 

White Plains, 53. 

Wisdom of many worth more than 
wisdom of one, 136, 137. 

Yorktowu, 70, 116. 



American statesmen. 

A Series of Biographies of Men conspicuous in the 
Political History of the United States. 

EDITED BY 

JOHN T. MORSE, Jr. 

The object of this series is not merely to give a 
number of unconnected narratives of men in Ameri- 
can political life, but to produce books v/hich shall 
when taken together, indicate the lines of political 
thought and development in American history. 

The volumes now ready are as follows, — 

jfohn Qui?icy Adains. By John T. Morse, Jr. 
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yolm jRandolph. By Henry Adams. 
James Monroe. By Pres. Daniel C. Oilman. 
Thomas yeff^erson. By John T. Morse, Jr. 
Daniel Webster. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 
Albert Gallati?i. By John Austin Stevens. 
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John Adams. By John T. Morse, Jr. 
John Marshall. By A. B. Magruder. 
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